


Sometimes Antisocial

by gyroscope



Series: Always Antifascist [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Activism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Antifa AU, Brief homophobia, Brief suicidal thoughts, Disability, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Natasha Romanov, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Neo-Nazis, Police Brutality, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protests, Racism, Recreational Drug Use, Social Justice, Violence, anarcho-socialism, drug-fuelled hookups, extremely light BDSM, internalized ableism, one day I hope that will be a canonical tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-12-07 18:52:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18238895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyroscope/pseuds/gyroscope
Summary: Across the hall, the kitchen door is closed, and there’s a scrap of paper pinned to it, NO PHONES BEYOND THIS POINT. Bucky hears the quiet buzz of conversation and the scratch of pens on paper. For a long moment he stands in the hallway, hand twitching in his hoodie pocket. He could open the door and go in. He could ask what’s going on, ask how he can help. Steve invited him to stay, Steve trusts him, would vouch for him.He turns away and heads slowly back up the stairs. Anything that can only be discussed in a room with no electronics is not gonna be anything he’s able to get involved with these days, not now that he can’t run or fight or hold a blockade line and his face has been splashed across international news.Bucky Barnes just wants to get his life back together, come to terms with his disability, and maybe get to know this cute guy who lives in Steve’s house. Unfortunately there are fascists in the government and violent cops in the streets, and his friends are on the front line of the resistance. Staying out of this fight may not be an option.





	1. May 1st, 2016

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to:  
> [hansbekhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hansbekhart) for reading the first draft and pointing out what the plot should be  
> [itshysterekal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itshysterekal) for Ameripicking and DC knowledge  
> [gracelesso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesso) for expert constructive criticism, compliments and handholding.
> 
> There is a playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lAGNKDZUXDVmyLEf8rk99
> 
> I'm on twitter [@gyroscope_fic](https://twitter.com/gyroscope_fic)
> 
> Thanks, respect, solidarity and love to everyone out there doing the real life work of trying to make the world a better place. You're all super(soldiers).

> _It is our duty to fight for our freedom_  
>  _It is our duty to win_  
>  _We must love each other and support each other_  
>  _We have nothing to lose but our chains_  
>  \- Assata Shakur
> 
> _Sometimes antisocial, always antifascist_  
>  \- Antifa slogan

 

The memories are confused, after. Unclear, uncertain. When it starts coming back to him, in the hospital, he won’t be sure of the order of events, or where they were at a given moment, what was done or who said what. Some things are blurry and others are achingly clear, and it’s not always the same things, they shift and switch over time.

People want him to remember, want him to talk about it. Shrinks want him to _process_ , his parents say _we can’t help unless you talk to us_ , the reporters who manage to sneak past hospital security are just dying to hear all about the _riot_ and _who decided to attack the police_. The cops themselves have plenty of questions too. Bucky shrugs or looks away or pretends to be asleep or says _Sorry. I don’t remember_.

He remembers getting ready for the demo, five or six of them packed into Steve’s tiny bedroom in the shitty apartment they shared with too many roommates. Jostling for space at the mirror, fixing his hair, swiping an eyeliner pencil from one of the girls and leaning in to draw thick black lines around his eyes, ignoring her protests, _Bucky you don’t even know how to do makeup, you look ridiculous_ as she dug her fingers into his ribs and laughed. He remembers swapping the eyeliner for a sharpie, writing the phone number of the legal hotline on his arm. The comforting weight of his leather jacket settling onto his shoulders. The quick pocket check by the front door, wallet phone pen keys water gum 3 pack of condoms. _There’s gonna be an afterparty, right? Some fundraiser in the Village I think_. Fundraiser for what? He doesn’t recall. Did they even know? Did they bother to think about it? Someone was always fundraising for something.

The text message conversation with Natasha, as they’re waiting for the subway. He doesn’t have to try to remember that, it’s still right there in his phone.

_happy mayday! dont do anything I wldnt do._

_What country are you in?_

_spain, but gonna hitch a lift on the ferry to morocco in the am. maybe off grid for a while. dont worry. love to everyone x_

_don’t do anything Steve would do._

_lol_

When he thinks about the demo itself, linear memory falters, collapses into random images. Faces, angry and joyful. Mouths open, chanting and singing. Bodies jostling against each other, shaking hands, hugging hello. People in hippie dresses, jeans and t-shirts, black hoodies and face masks. Some of Steve’s hipster artist friends in three-piece suits and clown facepaint, dancing in and out of the crowd, pointing water pistols at cops and security guards, laughing; and that makes him cringe, now. How childishly thoughtless, _privileged_ , unwittingly revealing. How harmless the police must have considered them, to allow them to get away with shit like that. How unthreatening they must have seemed. Walking and smiling with their banners and placards against the grey spring sky.

_WE ARE THE 99%_  
_You Don’t Hate Mondays, You Hate Capitalism_  
_Students for Free Education!_  
_DUMP TRUMP_  
_refugees welcome_

He remembers the little plaza out front of the JP Morgan building, the crowd flowing up from the street to gather in front of the doors. Speeches, megaphone passing from hand to hand.

He remembers the _crack_ as the first rock hit the glass front of the building, the way voices surged up out of the crowd; shocked, encouraging, angry. The person all in black, face hidden by a scarf and hood, who pushed between him and Steve, running at the building, swinging a crowbar that slammed into the glass, again and again. The shattering noise and the look in the masked-up person’s eyes as they ran past Bucky, back into the crowd.

The cops lining up at the front of the building, shoving people back. The crowd milling around, uncertain, some people squaring up, others starting to walk away. _Maybe we should get outta here_. Steve, grinning, _what? It’s just getting interesting!_

Then a sound – a scream, sudden and high-pitched. Lingering in the air, for a long strange second, while everyone looked around, trying to work out what was happening. Then the whole crowd exploding, shouting, moving, trying to run away but finding they were blocked on all sides by the lines of riot cops that seemed to come out of nowhere, flowing across the street, boots thudding on the tarmac, heavy riot gear jangling and shuffling, the echoing slam of nightsticks hitting shields.

From there the memories get even more vague and scattered, though occasionally he’s been blindsided by suddenly recalling something new. A series of sounds and pictures and snaps of sense memory in no particular order: faces all around, scared and furious. A hand grabbing his jacket sleeve. Stretching up on tiptoe to try to see over other people’s heads. Helping someone up off the floor. A stone flying through the air, an empty beer bottle shattering on the ground in front of the cops. Someone on the megaphone, someone yelling in his ear. Someone getting tackled to the ground by a snatch squad, face slammed into the road, wrists cuffed behind her back. A sudden loud bang and flare of light from the other side of the street, are they using flashbangs? _What the fuck they – get up, get up – fuck the police_ – Steve face to face with the police line, yelling right up at a massive riot cop. The crowd surging away from the pop and hiss of tear gas grenades, clouds of white smoke, people crying and shouting, pain and indignation, Bucky’s eyes starting to prickle as the gas spreads and suddenly he realizes that the cops in the nearest line, only a few feet away, are holding stun grenades and gas guns too, and some of them are raising them, they’re aiming –


	2. March 2017

Bucky steps off the bus in DC early on a Thursday morning, thirsty and aching and tired down to his bones.

He brings his hand up, shielding his eyes from the sun, squinting across the busy concourse; and a skinny little figure scrambles up from his seat, comes running over. Steve’s got new glasses, big black plastic hipster frames, and he’s wearing his ancient beat-up brown leather jacket over ripped jeans and a hot pink _Antifascist Action_ t-shirt. He comes up on tiptoes and throws his arms around Bucky’s neck, and Bucky wraps his one arm around Steve’s waist and just holds on and breathes, desperately grateful that Steve’s managing to hug him without touching what remains of his left arm.

“You made it,” he says, face mashed up against Bucky’s collarbone.

“Said I would,” Bucky says. He’s not gonna cry. It’s only been a couple months since he last saw Steve and he’s _fine_ and he’s not going to cry.

Steve doesn’t stop touching him. On the bus he sits close, one skinny arm draped around Bucky’s shoulders, as he chatters away about his house and his college courses and the paintings he’s working on. It feels so good, it’s almost too much. Bucky’s spent the last ten months either being poked and prodded by doctors and physical therapists, or hiding in his room, not letting anyone get close enough to touch him. Avoiding public spaces as much as possible, stepping back and glaring at anyone coming in for a hug. For weeks after – after it happened, after he came home from the hospital, his mother kept trying to hold him. Her arms closing around him so gently it was like she was afraid he would shatter into pieces, and every time there would be tears in her eyes, and he couldn’t stand it, and started yelling at her whenever she came too close. After a few weeks she’d given up, and started doing her crying somewhere else, where he didn’t have to see it and feel guilty.

They get off the bus on a quiet street, low rise apartment buildings on one side, shabby red brick row houses on the other. Steve’s house is one of the shabbiest, its tiny front yard full of old bicycles and dirty plastic garden furniture, the wooden front porch and overhang looking moments away from collapse. But the door and front steps have been painted a nice bright blue, and the rickety wire fence surrounding the yard is decorated with ribbons and a pair of tiny rainbow flags.

Steve trots up the steps to the front door, fishing for his keys in every pocket in turn. Bucky follows, taking his time. He’s still a little shaky on stairs, his balance skewed, and the heavy backpack isn’t helping. Up close, he can see that the paint is peeling off the door and there are scratches all around the locks. It takes Steve several attempts to get it open, jiggling the key up and down and finally placing his shoulder against the door and shoving with all his weight.

The walls in the narrow front hall are yellow, the wooden floorboards scratched. A home-made doormat orders Bucky to _wipe your fucking feet_. The walls are decorated with posters announcing protests and punk shows, a rainbow flag with a black and brown fist in its center, black flags and banners. DESTROY WHITE SUPREMACY; FOOD NOT BOMBS; A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE REVOLUTION.

“You hungry?” Steve says.

“I could eat.”

“Come on, the kitchen's this way.”

The kitchen is busy and bright, morning sunlight streaming in through the big bay windows onto counter-tops piled with miscellaneous objects: saucepans, dirty plates, an electric kettle, piles of paper and envelopes, a chunky laptop decorated with feminist stickers, old paperback books with ruffled page edges like they've been dropped in the bath and then left to dry in the sun. On top of the fridge there’s an honest to god eighties boombox, and a cardboard box with _TAPES!!!_ scrawled across its front in purple sharpie. A soft, scratchy sounding hip-hop track is playing.

There are two people on the far side of the room, stirring something in a pan on the stove, fetching plates down from a cupboard. Talking, gesturing, nudging each other out of the way with hips and elbows, graceful and easily affectionate. Bucky hovers in the doorway. The room feels like it’s under some soft spell, and he’s afraid to break it by speaking.

“Hey, guys,” Steve says, brushing past him into the room, and Natasha turns towards them, and the sardonic little smile on her face cracks into a real one, big and genuine.

“Hey, trouble.”

Bucky can’t get used to how good she looks these days. It’s like a magic eye picture, bifocal vision. Natasha now is superimposed over Natasha then, and if he squints, if he tilts his head just right, he’ll be able to see the both of them.

He remembers her at eighteen, pale and horribly thin, hiding in oversized hoodies and sweatpants. She’d shaved her head and her parents wouldn’t let her out of the house in case the neighbors saw it. A few months later she’d dropped out of ballet school, bought a one-way ticket to Paris and disappeared. They’d kept in touch, texts and occasional calls, but she always refused to send selfies. When she turned up back in the States, five years later – in New York, in his hospital room – he barely recognized her. She must have gained at least sixty pounds and was all muscular curves, looking like she could beat the shit out of anyone and they’d say thank you. She’s keeping her hair long these days, with an undercut shaved across the side of her head. Bucky can see the edges of tattoos at her wrists and at the neckline of her sweater.

“Your mother’s gonna throw a fit when she sees you’ve shaved half your hair off again, Nat.”

She comes across the room and pulls him into a hug, and it’s good, but he can’t help wondering, is this going to keep happening? Are people just going to hug him all the time now? He’s not sure if he can handle it. She lets go after a moment and takes a step back, something uncomfortably soft and understanding in her eyes. Reaching up again to stroke his hair back out of his face, and he finds himself ducking his head, shuffling his feet.

“You have no right to talk about anyone else’s hair right now,” she says, a smile on her face, an almost imperceptible tremor in her voice. “What is _this_? When did you last get a haircut?”

 _You know when_ , Bucky thinks. _They shaved it off in the hospital. You saw me after_. He doesn’t say that. He’s got an opportunity here, new city, new home. New chance to try to stop always being such a fucking downer. “I’m growing it out.”

“You look like a closeted European soccer player,” she says, and the man over by the sink nearly chokes on a surprised laugh. Bucky looks over.

He’s leaning against the countertop, cup of coffee cradled in his hands. A tall, well-built black guy, maybe a couple years older than Bucky, with the kind of deep brown eyes people write romantic poetry about. He’s wearing a USAF t-shirt that’s slightly big on him, though still tight enough to reveal some incredible arm muscles. He smiles, showing the cutest front teeth gap Bucky has ever seen. _Shit_.

“Hi,” Bucky says, trying to smile back.

“Hey,” he says, walking over, and Bucky leans around Natasha so they can shake hands. “Sam Wilson.” He’s got one of those good handshakes, firm and warm without trying too hard, and he’s doing a good job of keeping his eyes on Bucky’s face, not staring at the space where his left arm should be. “You want breakfast?”

“Come sit down,” Steve says, and Bucky tears himself away from Sam Wilson’s eyes to take a seat at the big wooden table. Steve shoves a plate in front of him. Buttered rye toast, fried mushrooms, guacamole, some sort of mush that looks a bit like scrambled eggs mixed up with vegetables. Bucky pokes at it with his fork.

“Tofu scramble,” Nat says, dumping the empty frying pan into the sink. “We’re trying veganism this month, apparently.”

“Eating animals is unethical and contributes to climate change,” says Steve, through a mouthful of toast.

“Though if we really cared about ethically sourced food, we’d give up these avocados that were definitely grown and harvested by exploited Latino farm laborers,” says Sam, pointing his fork at Steve.

“These avocados came out of the dumpster behind Whole Foods,” Steve says. “They’re anti-capitalist avocados.” The exchange feels familiar, comfortable; one of those old political arguments that’s been hashed out many times between friends. “Hey, Buck,” and it takes a moment for his tired brain to focus, to realize Steve’s talking to him, “remember that time we nearly got arrested helping those homeless guys get pizza out the trash at Dominos?”

At some point, he thinks, Steve has to realize that Bucky’s not that person anymore. That they’re not going to run around together having dumb adventures like that anymore. He keeps his head down, concentrates on eating, lets the conversation flow over his head. Natasha and Sam finish eating and head out, slinging backpacks onto their shoulders and bitching about long shifts. Nat kisses the top of his head as she passes.

Bucky hears the front door creak and slam, and quietly breathes out. He feels prickly; tired and wired from bad sleep and hypervigilance on the Greyhound journey from New York. On edge, like he always is in new places these days.

“Coffee,” Steve says. It’s not really a question, but Bucky nods anyway.

“Sure.”

Steve gets up and goes over to the counter, opens a cupboard, has to stand on tiptoe to bring down a moka pot and a packet of Zapatista coffee from the top shelf. Of course, Bucky thinks. Dumpstered avocados, revolutionary socialist coffee grounds. “Milk’s in the fridge,” Steve says, and it’s homemade oat milk in a helpfully labeled jug.

“You’re really going all out with this vegan thing, huh.”

“Trying,” Steve says, setting the percolator on the stove.

“If you get anaemic again, I’m gonna –”

“Oh, you’re gonna what?”

“I’m gonna… tell Natasha to force-feed you some liver,” Bucky says, and manages an actual smile in response to Steve’s frustrated sigh.

They take their coffees across the front hall, into the living room. It’s got the same atmosphere as the kitchen: warm, lived-in, messy but reasonably clean. Bucky can smell that unmistakable punk house smell, faint enough to be weirdly pleasant: sweat and cigarettes and weed and beer and incense. The ugly orange couch and green armchairs probably date from the seventies, but they look soft and comfortable, covered with mismatched blankets and cushions. The bookcase in one corner of the room is full to overflowing, and a ramshackle collection of acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments – ukuleles? Banjos? – occupies another corner. Books and zines, pencils, empty cups and a full ashtray are scattered across a rickety coffee table; an old boxy TV set sits on top of a stack of wooden crates.

Steve switches on the TV as he passes and then curls up at one end of the couch, picking up a sketchbook and pencils. In a few seconds he’s lost in focus, sketchbook balanced on his knees, eyes flickering between the TV screen and the paper, coffee going cold on the table. It’s achingly familiar – half of Bucky’s memories of Steve look like this, his small body tucked into a corner, his hands moving across a page with an intense elegance that the rest of him could never quite match, lightning sketches spilling out of his fingers. He preferred to sketch from real life, but the TV would do – if he was sick, or it was too cold to sit out on the street, or he couldn’t spare the money to go and draw in a cafe.

When Bucky was in the hospital, Steve had drawn him a picture every day and stuck them up around his room. Nurses, patients, two doctors having a silent argument over a plate of muffins in the cafeteria, an old man knitting, a small child with a cast on one arm and a proud expression on their face, a new baby wrapped in a blanket.

Now, he’s sketching the local news show presenter and her guest, in fast brash lines, almost caricature. Exaggerating the sweep of the newsreader’s reddish weave and the large, bulbous eyes of the man she’s interviewing. Bucky sips his coffee, leans back into the couch cushions, lets his brain slow down. Closes his eyes.

He jerks awake again only a few minutes later, heart beating hard, _fuck_ his stupid fucked up fight or flight reflexes.

“Y’okay?”

“Fine.”

The TV is showing what looks like a press conference, for someone pretty important, judging by the wood-paneled room and crowd of reporters. The center of attention is an older white man, with sandy hair and a lined, handsome, former movie star sort of face.

“... forty years in the DC Metropolitan Police Department, the last eight years as Chief of Police,” he’s saying. He’s got an air of calm, avuncular confidence, so different to the fast-paced emotive exaggeration of the news reports that it’s almost soothing.

“Who’s this guy,” Bucky says.

“Alexander Pierce. Police chief. Just announced he’s running for mayor of DC.”

“... this sort of uncertainty, upheaval. People are losing faith in our government,” says Pierce, on the TV. “People see their rights and freedoms at risk. And we all have the right to stand up for our rights. But rights come with responsibilities.”

Steve’s still got his sketchpad on his lap, but he’s just doodling, not looking at the paper. His attention is fixed on the TV, on the man Pierce, still talking.

“Thomas Paine wrote that ‘those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.’ Freedom must be maintained by the rule of law. This country was founded on these principles. We must not let ourselves be intimidated by terrorists or extremists. And those of us here in Washington, here at the center of American democracy, have a particular opportunity, a particular responsibility. We can uphold democracy, we can maintain law and order, we can – we _must_ – work together.”

Steve's phone buzzes several times and he digs it out of his pocket, starts texting rapidly.

“Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos,” says Pierce. “With your help, we can keep our great country on the right path. Thank you.”

The reporters start clamoring questions, but Bucky’s looking at Steve. He knows that intent look. He used to _like_ that look, that expression on Steve’s face like he’s gearing up to fight the world. Now it just –

“Bucky. You ok?”

“I’m pretty wiped out, Steve. You think I could sleep for a bit?”

“Sure. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

Steve leads him up two flights of stairs, right to the top of the house. Bucky’s back is aching by the time they reach the top floor, his legs shaking a little.

The attic room has skylight windows set into the sloping ceiling and a narrow bed tucked under the eaves. The only other furniture is a small dresser and an old, squishy armchair. The bed is made up, there are a couple extra blankets folded over the back of the chair, and a soft rug underfoot. There’s an open cardboard box half full of books at the end of the bed, a glass of water and a bottle of apple juice sitting on the dresser. It’s quiet. It’s perfect.

“Steve, I. I don’t know how to thank –”

“The bathroom’s on the middle floor,” Steve says. “Sleep as long as you want. Come down to the kitchen if you get hungry, all the food’s communal, you can eat whatever you want. And don’t thank me, you know you’d do the same for me.”

 

~~~

 

The house is quiet when Bucky wakes a few hours later, less exhausted but feeling even more grimy and desperately needing to piss. Taking his travel towel and toothbrush from the top pocket of his backpack, he shuffles carefully down the stairs to find the bathroom.

It’s nicer than he was expecting, obviously recently cleaned. There are plants in old chipped terracotta pots sitting on the window ledge, bottles of cheap shower gel and shampoo and lotion packed neatly into a plastic crate, a shelf scattered with makeup and pots of glitter, a decent sized bathtub with a shower head above it. The mirror over the sink is only cracked in one corner and someone’s written on it in what looks like lipstick, _you look lovely! fuck the patriarchy!_

Fuck it. He’s having a bath.

He finally makes it downstairs an hour later, feeling warm and slightly dopey from the hot water, the tension in his shoulders lessened a little, hair still dripping on his clean hoodie. The living room door is open, and a goth kid with green hair playing guitar on the couch glances up, gives Bucky a nod. A girl dressed head to toe in purple athletic wear is sprawled on the floor in front of the TV, tapping away at a laptop. Does they live here too? Who even lives in this house?

Across the hall, the kitchen door is closed, and there’s a scrap of paper pinned to it, NO PHONES BEYOND THIS POINT. Bucky hears the quiet buzz of conversation and the scratch of pens on paper. For a long moment he stands in the hallway, hand twitching in his hoodie pocket. He could open the door and go in. He could ask what’s going on, ask how he can help. Steve invited him to stay, Steve trusts him, would vouch for him.

He turns away and heads slowly back up the stairs. Anything that can only be discussed in a room with no electronics is not gonna be anything he’s able to get involved with these days, not now that he can’t run or fight or hold a blockade line and his face has been splashed across international news.

It used to feel good to be in places like this. To talk about workers’ rights and climate change, share vegan food, hang out in shabby rooms decorated with posters. To live crammed into houses and apartments with friends, sometimes two or three people to a bedroom, making a home and a refuge for a revolving crowd of punks and queers and anarchists. He lived in this world for years, or on the fringes of it at least. Ever since it all kicked off in Zuccotti Park and Steve found a direction for his adolescent rage and his determination to fight every injustice in the world.

It was fun, for the most part. Camping out in parks and running from the cops, the thrill of breaking rules coupled with the satisfaction that they were breaking them for good reason. Collecting pins on his leather jacket and bad tattoos on his skin. Sharing cheap beer and drugs. Fooling around with a different person every weekend and calling it _relationship anarchy_.

They’d been so young, and so fucking stupid. Every danger an adventure, never considering that their lives might be at risk. And what had they achieved? What had Bucky ever done for anyone, beyond shouting in the street and causing some minor inconvenience to a few corporations and the Parks Department? What had any of it done for him, other than fuck him up? What use was he now, missing an arm, carrying around a bunch of nervous shitty habits that he was trying to kid himself didn’t amount to PTSD? What was he still doing in this world, when he had nothing left to give to it?

The movement had chewed Bucky up and spat him out and left him even more useless than before. Steve had landed an art school scholarship and moved away and made a space for himself in a new town with a whole new activist crew. In _Washington DC_ , of all places, with the most right-wing government they’d seen in decades doing god knew what just a couple miles away. Nazi sympathisers in the White House and refugees being banned from the country. Innocent people being shot down in the streets by the police; people arrested and brutalized for trying to protect their land from oil pipelines.

And Steve would run right into the middle of it, putting himself on the front line of every fight. And Bucky was too selfish and too exhausted and too damaged to stand with him, to protect him.

Up in his little room at the top of the house, he pulls the blankets up over his head and tries to fall asleep.


	3. March 2017

The next days pass in a blur, baths and naps and new faces and mechanically eating the plates of food that Nat or Steve offer him every few hours. It feels like a very quiet vacation, like he's an old man, staying at one of those cheap hotels that only ever seem to be visited by old people.

One day, mid-morning, Natasha knocks on his bedroom door.

“You up?”

“Ughh,” Bucky says, face down in the pillow. It had been a rough night. He’d smoked a joint before bed with some hippie acquaintances of Steve’s, who’d come over to discuss an upcoming animal rights demo and stayed to eat vegan lasagna and get baked in front of the TV. It had seemed like an ok idea at the time, but rather than having the intended effect of helping him relax and sleep, it had sent him into a shitty anxiety spiral that lasted most of the night. He’d shut himself in his room to avoid bothering anyone, and tried to breathe deeply and do his fucking meditation, but it had taken hours to get to sleep. Then he’d startled back awake three or four times out of nightmares, warped gray imaginings full of faceless figures who chased him through unfamiliar streets and laughed when he tried to fight them off with his one weakened arm.

Nat comes in and shoves the window blind up, letting in a rush of gorgeous headache-inducing sunlight. She has to climb onto the bed to reach the window, but she’s never had much respect for Bucky’s personal space, and it’s sort of comforting, the way she settles herself with her legs draped across his lower back and one hand playing with his hair.

“I’m teaching at the gym today and Steve’s coming along, he’s in a shitty mood and he needs to pick fights with some guys three times his size.”

“Whassat gotta do with me,” Bucky grumbles. He wants to sit up and smile and be good company, he really does. But the anxiety and nightmare tension are lingering, fuzzing up his head like a hangover, making him scared to venture out from under the blanket. What if he starts crying, or gets an anxiety attack in public? Days like this, the outside world is just too much.

“I’m making pancakes,” Natasha continues, as if he hadn’t said anything. “Banana and chocolate. Steve’s making coffee. Get up, shower, kitchen in twenty minutes or there won’t be any left.” She leans over and drops a swift kiss on the back of Bucky’s head, vaults herself up off the bed and jogs out of the room.

Showering and dressing take him more than twenty minutes even on a good day, but Nat wraps the pancakes up in tinfoil like burritos and they eat as they walk. Steve’s got his hands in his pockets and a pissed off look on his face but Nat’s upbeat and talkative, pointing out landmarks as they go – punk bars, an art gallery, good coffee shops, an alternative bookshop, the community college where Sam is studying counselling. They lead him down an alleyway between an antiques shop and a pharmacy, round the back of the shops to a wide, two-story building with a large, intimidating metal door. Painted on the door is a set of black and red circles with a star in the middle, and the words SHIELD GYM AND MARTIAL ARTS CENTER.

Inside, the red and black color scheme continues, in the posters on the wall advertising classes – kung fu, mixed martial arts, yoga, dance – and in the mural, which covers an entire wall and must be Steve’s work. It’s colored in shades of red and pink, from dark maroon to pastel, with touches of black and brown. It draws Bucky’s eyes back and forth, across the shapes of people fighting, dancing, lifting each other into acrobatic poses. A slim girl with long dark hair is shooting with a bow and arrow, but her target is a circular shield with a star in its center, like the logo outside, held up by a man who seems to be running across the mural towards her. A redheaded figure in heavy black boots, cutoffs and a tank top – Natasha? – performs a one-arm handstand on a balance beam. A small girl in a soft pink ballet tutu gives the black power salute. Tucked down in the bottom left corner is a little head and shoulders portrait of Steve himself, in boxing gloves and headgear, his fists up, a determined expression on his face.

“His most accurate self-portrait yet,” Natasha says, and Bucky laughs as Steve spins around to glare at her. “Come on, Barnes. Let me show you around. Steve, _warm up_ before you start persuading people to punch you, or _I’ll_ punch you.”

She ushers Bucky along the corridor. The upper half of the hallway walls on their right are glass, so Bucky can see into a room with exercise machines, then a smaller room with mirrors and a ballet barre along the far wall. On their left are a series of doors – changing rooms, toilets, storage. At the end of the hall they reach two more doors, each one labeled with a small plaque: _Manager’s Office_ to the left, and on the right, _Physical Therapist_.

“She’s expecting you,” Natasha says, and knocks on the door.

“Nat, I can’t just walk in there,” Bucky protests. “I’ve got no money, I –”

“Come in,” calls a cheerful voice. Natasha shoves the door open, gives Bucky one of her terrifying grins, and walks away, leaving him standing in the open doorway.

“You must be James,” the PT says. She’s got a kind, friendly smile. Her straight, shiny black hair is pulled back into a ponytail, she’s wearing jeans and a cozy looking wool sweater rather than the white coat Bucky was expecting. “I’m Helen. Please, come in. Have a seat.”

“I can’t afford any more physical therapy,” Bucky blurts out, like an idiot.

“How long were you getting PT after your accident?” She’s still smiling but her eyes move away from his face, assessing, she’s looking at Bucky’s shoulder, his feet, his right hand where it’s gripping the door frame.

“I, um. Every day in the hospital? For a few weeks, I don’t really... Then once a week for… about six months. I just moved here, I don’t have a job and I don’t know if I’m on my parents’ insurance any more.”

“Why don’t you come in and sit down,” Helen says, pushing a chair out from the desk with her foot, jabbing at her keyboard to wake the computer up, “and we can discuss how I recently got my certification and you’re a friend of Natasha’s and while I’m building up my practice I can see a small number of clients for twenty dollars a session.”

Bucky comes in and sits down.

“So, I. I got hit at close range, um, by, like –”

“Concussion grenade, I know. ‘Less than lethal’ weapons, that’s what they call them, right?”

“That’s what they call them,” Bucky agrees, and she looks at him, nods, like there are plenty more things she could say about that, given the opportunity.

“So, how do you know Natasha?”

She’s just making conversation, trying to help him relax. Maybe it’s working. “We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

“Have you ever done any martial arts?”

“Uh, not really? A few self-defense classes. I know how to throw a punch.”

“It could be a good option for you, alongside PT. Natasha teaches a class twice a week. Adaptive mixed martial arts – for people with disabilities and additional needs,” she spins away to type something on her computer, her voice light and casual, as if she can tell how much Bucky doesn’t want to talk about his _disabilities_. “You could ask her about it. There are other classes that might help as well – yoga, ballet. Anything with a focus on balance and flexibility.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Ok. May I take a look at your shoulder?”

Bucky takes a deep breath, and starts to take off his hoodie and shirt.

 

~~~

 

An hour later, Bucky stumbles out of Helen’s office feeling like his entire body, brain, and medical history have been thoroughly scanned and gently beaten up. He finds his way back along the hallway, to the front reception area. It’s busy but calm, a few people waiting to one side of the room, mostly twenty- and thirty-something women, chatting or checking their phones, a more chilled out and racially diverse version of the dance moms crowd he remembers from Natasha’s ballet school days. Steve’s leaning against the desk, deep in conversation with a middle-aged black man with – a fucking eye-patch? – who doesn’t look like any gym receptionist Bucky’s ever seen before.

“Officially, Rogers, I don’t know anything about any of that,” he’s saying. Steve’s grinning, looking a hell of a lot more relaxed, his hair standing up in sweaty spikes.

“’Course,” he says. “A pillar of the community like you.”

“Hey, respectable local businessmen got our place in the movement too,” the older guy says. “I got that meeting scheduled, by the way.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s a busy man these days. Said he wouldn’t have time to see me ‘til June, but I called in a favor, managed to pin him down for an hour at the end of May.”

“I don’t trust Pierce further than I could spit,” Steve says.

“Who said anything about _trust_. It’s a pre-emptive strike, that’s all.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“If it doesn’t work…” Eye-patch glances around the room, so quickly Bucky only just catches it. “Well, if it doesn’t work, we got other options.” He nods to Bucky. “This must be Mr Barnes.”

Steve’s head jerks around, he beckons Bucky over. “Yeah, this is Bucky. Bucky, this is Nick.”

Bucky leans over the reception desk so they can shake hands. Close up, Nick looks older than he’d assumed at first glance – sixties, not fifties. The lines around his mouth and his visible eye are deep, as are the scars above and below the eye patch. He’s well built, with broad shoulders and visible muscles beneath his black t-shirt, and somehow manages to make sitting in an office chair look like standing at attention.

He looks Bucky up and down. For a moment Bucky feels pinned down, observed to the point of discomfort. Like everything about him is detectable; like his life and history and personality traits can all be interpreted and analyzed on the spot. Then Nick smiles, and it’s warm and friendly.

“Welcome to DC.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, just managing to repress the urge to add _sir_.

“Nick runs the gym,” Steve says.

“So, technically he’s your boss?” Bucky says, pointing to Steve’s mural on the wall, and finds himself grinning at the matched looks of horror on both Steve and Nick’s faces.

“He’s _Natasha’s_ boss,” Steve says.

“Thank God,” Nick says. “Natasha’s a professional who shows up on time and gets all her work done without complaining. Are those posters ready yet, by the way?”

“Getting there,” Steve says. “I’ll email you by tomorrow evening, if that’s ok – I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” he says to Bucky. “Nick hires half the out of work artists and activists in this town, you stand around here for another five minutes and he’ll offer you a job.”

“Which are you? Artist or activist?” Nick says.

“Neither,” Bucky says. “I don’t meet the requirements, really,” and he shrugs, in the way that he knows draws attention to his left shoulder, to the fact that it stops at a stump.

Most people change the subject at this point. Nick just gives him a look, like he can see exactly what Bucky’s trying to do, and hear what he’s deliberately not saying. “How long’s it been? Less than a year, right?”

Of course he knows about it. Why do people keep knowing about it. What a shitty and ridiculous way to become famous, getting your arm blown off by trigger-happy cops at a dumb little anti-capitalist demo. “Ten and a half months,” Bucky says.

“Give it time,” Nick says, and for a moment Bucky’s so angry he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He feels his hand bunch into a fist, feels his fingernails digging into his palm. He’s surrounded by people who all know what happened to him, and they’re all trying to _fix_ him. _Here, have some cheap physical therapy and free unsolicited advice. Have the spare room in our house because you can’t function on your own and your family can’t stand you anymore. Have some soft blankets and vegan fucking smoothies._

Who says he wants to be an activist anymore, anyway.

He realizes that he’s glaring at his own feet, and feels a little twitch of guilt. Nick’s just trying to help, he doesn’t deserve to be the target of Bucky’s anger and bullshit. He makes himself look up, tries to smile apologetically. It feels like a miserable failure, an awkward parody of a smile, but Nick gives him a small nod in response, as if to say, _it’s ok. I see what you’re trying to say. I see that you’re trying._

Bucky hears a door opening behind them, and then some high-pitched chattering voices. Natasha’s coming out of a nearby room, holding the door open for a gaggle of little kids wearing ballet shoes. Most of them pause to give her a hug or a high-five before they run across to their moms, talking excitedly about what they did in class with Ms Natasha.

Nat comes over to the reception desk and leans against it, stretching in exaggerated exhaustion. She’s waving goodbye to the moms and kids, a sort of soft, affectionate look on her face. The whole thing’s almost unbearably cute.

“You didn’t tell me you teach, like, disabled fighting,” Bucky says. That seems easier to say than _what the fuck, Romanov, since when do you like children_. Or, _when did you start doing ballet again_. Or, _when did my friends become real adults with jobs and lives, and am I always gonna be struggling to catch up_.

“It’s called adaptive martial arts,” she says, still waving and smiling as the parents and kids start to leave.

“How come you didn’t mention it?”

She turns to look at him properly, hands on her hips, head tilted slightly to one side. “I dunno, Barnes. Maybe I felt like dragging you over here and setting you up with physio was enough interfering for one day.”

Bucky is suddenly overwhelmed by how much he adores Nat, by how much effort and love she quietly pours into helping all her fucked up friends stay on their feet. “Thanks,” he says, awkward, and she grins, and punches him in the arm.

“Six PM on Wednesdays, two on Saturdays,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Adaptive MMA. Bring both your arms.”

 

~~~

 

In the changing room mirror, under harsh strip lights, he looks pale and tired, washed out. A couple days’ stubble on his face makes him look older, in a way he’s still not used to. He only looks in the mirror when absolutely necessary these days, and shaving properly with one hand has proved pretty much impossible anyway.

He dumps his messenger bag onto the counter by the sink and pulls out the prosthetic arm with a clatter of plastic.

He hates the prosthetic, hates it for being a cheap piece of shit that looks nothing like a real arm, hates how much effort it takes to move it around, hates that sometimes he needs it, hates that it has to even exist, hates how uncomfortable it is, hates that he knows if he wore it more often he would most likely adjust and find it more comfortable, hates that every time he straps it on it reminds him how useless and damaged he is. For a moment he fucking hates Natasha, for making him do this, for the way she always drags him out of the hole and won’t let him pity himself.

In the hospital they made him practice putting it on and taking it off, again and again until he could probably do it in his sleep. They showed him videos; improbably cheerful quadruple amputees showing how they could strap on all their arms and legs independently. He’s still not sure if the message he took – _look at these people who have it so much worse than you and are coping so much better_ – was intentional or not.

Ok. Fuck it.

Take hold of the bottom of your t-shirt and pull it off in one quick movement, that’s almost easier when you only have one arm. Put on your tank top, slightly more complicated. Don’t get distracted by how baggy it is or by wondering where the fuck any of your muscle definition went in the last year. Don’t look at the scars. Silicone cap goes over the stump, then the white Lycra sock over that. Grab the top of the prosthetic in your right hand, pull it on, twist and lock. Harness over your shoulders, don’t let it get twisted. Roll your shoulders back. Lock and unlock the elbow joint a couple times, open and close the hook.

Breathe slow. Look in the fucking mirror. Do not puke or have a flashback.

He’s never managed to successfully explain to anyone why he hates wearing the prosthetic so much. His parents were confused and frustrated, watching him stumble around the house in those long shitty months of recovery, trying to do everything one-handed, often failing, occasionally losing his temper and throwing things, crying, storming out of the room. The physical therapists at the hospital were supportive but overworked; the consultant prosthetist was a patronizing dick who made sure to drop hints in their first meeting that he’d read the news coverage and in his opinion Bucky had deserved everything he got. His counsellor was ok and clearly wanted to help, but Bucky was spending every bit of energy he had on Not Talking About It and Not Thinking About It and then after the first few months Not Even Going To Therapy Anyway, so that was a bust.

Steve seemed to get it, a bit better than most. They didn’t talk about it much, but on one of Steve’s visits back up to New York, he brought Bucky a pair of boots. Really good boots, he must have saved up his art commission money for weeks. Smooth black leather, thick soles, steel toecaps. Bright pink and purple striped laces looping up through ten holes and fixed in tight double bows – that Bucky wouldn’t have to try to tie and untie with one hand, thanks to the hidden zips on the inside of each boot.

_What if I want to switch them out for black laces, though_ ; he’d said, to annoy Steve and so he wouldn’t have to show how touched he felt. _I mean these are cute, but I’ll stand out in the bloc, you idiot_. A joke on more than one level, really. They’d never done more than dabble in black bloc, trying out the aesthetic because the cool kids were doing it; and besides, Bucky would be worse than useless in any direct action now.

_You’ll stand out in the bloc because you only have one fucking arm_ ; Steve had said, and then immediately looked like he wanted to punch himself in the mouth. It’s one of Bucky’s favorite memories.

He looks up and manages to meet his own eyes in the mirror. There’s a hint of a smile on his face. Maybe this is going to be ok.

Quickly, before he can change his mind, he grabs his sweatshirt and bag and walks straight out of the changing room, head up, both arms visible.

Natasha’s adaptive martial arts class is in the smallest studio, the room with the mirrored back wall and the ballet barre. Someone’s laid down crash mats on the sprung floor and pulled the curtains across the windows that run along the central corridor, so the space feels private, soft. A couple of guys are sitting on the floor doing warm-up stretches, their wheelchairs pushed neatly up against the wall.

Nat’s stretching too, one bare foot up on the barre, fingertips resting easily on her toes, her head turned to one side so she can chat quietly with the woman next to her. The other woman has her back to the door so Bucky can’t see her face, and her hands are tucked into the pockets of her red hoodie, the hood flopping down below her big, loose-curled Afro. Nat says something that makes her throw her head back in a laugh, and she snaps something back that makes Nat smile wider, not her customer service smile but a real one, one of the smiles that only her friends are allowed to see. Then Nat’s getting both feet back on the ground and gesturing toward the mats, and the woman’s turning and shrugging off her hoodie and Bucky’s eyes are bugging out of his head, because this lady has a fucking _bionic arm_.

It’s gleaming black and silver, reaching almost up to her shoulder in smooth lines that perfectly mimic the shape of her remaining flesh and blood arm. The hand is matte black, with actual fingers and a thumb, real articulated joints that move effortlessly as she drapes her sweater over the barre, slips on a headband to hold her curls back from her face. It’s the Tesla Roadster of prosthetics, and Bucky’s over here with his rusty Ford Pinto.

“Hi, everyone,” Natasha says. “We’re going to start with some gentle stretches and warm-ups, so make yourself comfortable.”

The class is a strange mixture of movements and disciplines, from yoga poses to boxing and muay thai. Some stuff Bucky recognizes, from the few group exercise or martial arts classes he went to years ago in New York, some stuff is completely new to him. Everything they do has two or three different options, and Nat encourages them all to participate in their own ways, at their own pace. She talks with the wheelchair users about adapted self-defense moves and upper body strength training; she gets the woman to practice hitting a punching bag with exactly the same force and speed whether she’s using her bionic arm or her regular one. She pushes Bucky with her usual relentless affectionate bullying until he does five push-ups, which is five more than he’s managed in the past year. Then she gets him doing sit-ups, and hopping from one foot to the other, and running on the spot, and balancing on one leg, and then practicing roundhouse kicks on the heavy bag until he’s shaking with exhaustion and drenched in sweat.

They finish with more gentle yoga stretches, and then Bucky’s lying on his back on the crash mats, wondering if anyone would mind if he just hung out on the floor for a while and maybe had a nap, or died; when the woman with the bionic arm looks down at him. “Coming for a smoke?”

“Uh, sure,” Bucky says. He staggers to his feet and follows her, down the hall and out the front of the gym. A couple of teenagers give them a not so subtle sideways look and for a second he wishes he could run back to the changing room, get the prosthetic off or at least cover it up with a sweater, but he’s too curious to let bionic arm woman out of his sight.

Outside, she pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her hoodie pocket and lights two, handing one over to Bucky. “Misty Knight.”

“Bucky Barnes.”

She gives Bucky a wry smile, her nose wrinkling. “Both our parents hated us, huh? Mine’s short for Mercedes.”

“My middle name’s Buchanan.”

She grimaces and makes a vague gesture with her cigarette, maybe meant to indicate _yeah, you win_.

“What happened?” Bucky says. “I mean. How did you lose yours?”

“High speed car chase,” she says.

“Oh, yeah? Were you chasing or being chased?”

“I was chasing.” There’s a brief pause. “I used to be a cop.”

All the things Bucky isn’t saying must be written all over his face, because she takes one look at him and grins ruefully.

“Yeah, Natasha said you might feel some kinda way about that.”

“Sorry,” Bucky says quickly. She shrugs.

“I was already thinking of quitting when, well.”

“I guess you know how I lost mine, if you’ve been talking to Natasha.”

“Woulda recognized you anyway. I saw you on the news.” She exhales, a slow plume of smoke. “Why didn’t you sue?”

“My parents wanted me to. I dunno. I just wanted to forget all about it. Didn’t want a court case hanging over my head.” He gives her a quick look, takes a risk. “And I didn’t want to give the police so much trouble that they’d start wanting to give me trouble back.” She just nods. “Tell you something though,” Bucky says.

“Yeah?”

“If I’d thought they would’ve paid out for some science fiction shit like you have there, I might’ve made a different decision.”

She lifts her hand and slowly rotates it, curling and relaxing the fingers. “It’s pretty sweet, I’m not gonna lie.” Stubbing out her cigarette, she turns towards the door. “I better get changed. See you next week?”

“Sure.”

She’s almost through the door when Bucky calls after her. “Hey, so, what do you do now? If you’re not a cop anymore?”

“Law school,” she says. “I want to be a public defender.”


	4. April 2017

He wakes abruptly, eyes open, heart beating hard, only half registering what’s wrenched him up out of sleep. A series of distant crashing noises, like pots and pans clattering into the sink. Then laughter, gently mocking, presumably aimed at whoever dropped the pots. Steve and Nat and Sam’s house is old and cheaply built, and sound carries easily, even from the kitchen to the top floor. He sits up, pushes the covers back. It’s a good day, maybe a three out of ten, no need for pain meds. The ache in his shoulders is almost gentle, satisfying; muscles tired from yoga and push-ups and hitting a punching bag. No phantom pain, no shakiness in his legs as he gets out of bed and goes downstairs.

He hovers in the kitchen doorway. The room is full of people and he doesn’t recognise half of them. People are slicing bread, mixing up salads in big plastic boxes. Nat’s at the stove, stirring a huge pot that smells of tomato and spices. There’s music playing from the boombox and what sounds like about six conversations going on at once.

The house, as Bucky had suspected from the start, is almost always full, people coming and going at all hours. Activists and punks dropping round to eat, to smoke and drink beers and fuck around with guitars, to help each other with homework and leaflet-writing, to dye each others’ hair and shave undercuts, to give each other stick’n’poke tattoos. Most mornings there’s at least one breakfast guest, or someone still asleep, crashed out on a couch or a floor, too drunk last night to get home, or unwelcome in their parents’ house, or hitchhiking and couchsurfing their way around the country. Most evenings there are meetings, groups of people gathered around the kitchen table or huddled in the living room, laptop keys tapping as someone takes notes, voices that range from soft to strident, from furious indignation to warm laughter.

It’s loud and unpredictable, but somehow it’s soothing. The last few months in his parents’ house had felt like living in a mausoleum. Becca away at college, the younger kids avoiding him and spending every possible hour out of the house, nobody inviting friends over, everyone acting like they were afraid to speak, like he was infecting them with his trauma and bullshit.

No one in Steve’s house tiptoes around him like they’re waiting for a bomb to go off. Sometimes people get this look on their face that tells him they recognize him, that they’re trying to decide if it’s ok to ask about it; but nobody acts like they’re mourning Bucky’s old life, missing the person he used to be. Most of them had never met him before, they don’t know what’s to miss. Most of them have seen much weirder and more upsetting things in their lives than a quiet punk kid with one arm and limited social skills.

“Hey, Bucky.”

“Morning, Nat.”

“Get dressed,” she says, smiling, raising her voice to be heard across the noisy kitchen. “We’re leaving soon.”

 

  
~~~

 

  
The two Ubers pull up alongside the park and people start jumping out, passing each other boxes of salad and bread, pots of soup and curry wrapped in towels to stay warm. Sam and Steve are wrestling a folding table out of the trunk of one car.

“Bucky, can you take these?” Sam hands over a few canvas tote bags, bulging with leaflets and disposable cutlery.

They set the table down in a little clearing between some trees and unfold it, spreading out the banner that doubles as a tablecloth. _Food Not Bombs DC: free soup for the revolution_ hand-painted in black and red, a cute drawing of smiling potatoes and carrots jumping into a pot.

There’s a crowd gathering already. Bucky doesn’t recognize anyone and yet they all sort of look familiar, the same sort of people who always show up to events like this. There's a little crew of street punks with heavily patched clothes and backpacks, swigging liquor from a brown-bagged bottle and making a cursory effort to keep their various dogs under control. Plenty of older homeless people, some chatting sociably and others keeping their distance from everyone else. College students, who always show up for free food, whether they really need it or not. Some younger kids are riding bikes and skateboards not far away, keeping half an eye on the food. Middle-class families and tourists walking through the park slow down out of curiosity, and a few stop to hang around.

“Come on guys, let’s get this show on the road,” Steve says, and within moments there’s a production line in action. Steve and two women Bucky doesn’t know are ladling the hot food into plastic bowls. Natasha and a younger girl are making up plates of bread and salad, while Sam walks up and down in front of the stall, encouraging and charming people into waiting in line. Bucky takes a place at one end of the table where he can offer people the leaflets Steve designed, with an explanation and history of Food Not Bombs and a schedule of when they’ll be handing out food over the next few months. The line’s moving just slow enough that he can scoop up the fliers and pass them to people with only his right hand.

After an intense few minutes, the crowd starts to slow down. Sam strolls back over to the table, picks up a chunk of bread.

“How are you liking DC, so far?”

“It’s good,” Bucky says. “I like this… whole set up, this is cool,” he sweeps his arm out wide, trying to indicate the table of food, the people serving it, all the other people scattered across the grass, eating and talking in pairs and groups. “Have you had any trouble from the cops?”

“We’re kind of at a stalemate right now,” Sam says. “They say we need a permit, we say we don’t, ‘cause we’re not _selling_ food, we’re giving it away. Couple of us got arrested last year but they couldn’t make any charges stick and the judge told the cops they’d wasted her time. So, lately they’ve just been rolling up to make jokes about food poisoning and then leaving.”

“Speak of the devil,” Nat says, and nods to the far side of the park, where a police cruiser is coming to a halt.

The cops take their time getting out of the car, and their walk across the grass towards the stalls is more of a laid-back stroll. _Relax, everyone, this is just a friendly visit_. There are two of them, both white men. One is huge, over six foot tall and broad, with slicked-back hair and a scar on his face. The other is shorter, but looks tough and well built. There’s a touch of swagger in his walk and he wears sunglasses, and the kind of tousled hair and stubble combination that’s supposed to look careless but clearly takes time to maintain.

“How’s the revolution coming along,” he says, grinning at Sam, who gives him a politely bland smile back.

“Hi, Rumlow. You want vegetable soup, or tofu curry?”

“That’s _Sergeant_ Rumlow to you, Wilson.”

Rumlow turns to look at Bucky, his eyes flickering between Bucky’s face and his empty shirt sleeve. Bucky stands his ground, determined not to shrink back or shuffle his feet. It’s always uncomfortable when people stare at the arm and it’s so much worse when the person staring is a cop.

“I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t think so, officer.”

The cop nods towards Bucky’s left shoulder. “You a veteran?”

“Uh, no. It was… just a bad accident.”

“Tough break,” Rumlow says. It sounds sympathetic enough, but Bucky still wishes the guy would leave him the fuck alone. He’s out of practice at this – the casual chat with cops, drip feeding them just enough friendly, fake-polite, deliberately vague information that they stop asking questions.

“Do you want some food, officers?” Natasha interrupts. She’s also got a polite smile on her face, but something about the tilt of her head is giving off some serious attitude. “’Cause you’re holding up the line.”

“I don’t think our health insurance covers getting poisoned by hippies,” says the massive cop, clapping Rumlow on the shoulder. Bucky catches Sam’s eye, and Sam raises an eyebrow. The cops stroll away, walking deliberately close to the line of people waiting for food, looking everyone over as they go.

“Man, they need to get some new material,” Sam says.

“Thanks,” Bucky says quietly.

“No problem,” Nat says. “What’s the point of being a white girl if you don’t use it to get away with being rude to cops?”

“That’s what I always say,” Sam says, and there’s a rush of laughter and chatter, everyone within earshot chiming in with comments and jokes. Bucky’s still watching the cops, and he notices that Sam’s watching too. They’ve stopped maybe twenty yards away, and they’re speaking to someone, a well-built black guy in a long leather coat.

“Is that the guy who runs the gym, talking to the cops?” Bucky asks, and Steve’s head whips around.

“Yeah,” he says, after squinting for a moment through his glasses. “That’s Fury.”

“Is that his real name?”

“What _is_ a real name,” Steve says.

“Ok, but seriously,” Bucky says. “Tell me about him. What’s his deal? Why the leather coat? Is he going to kill all the vampires,” and he’s gratified to see Sam crack a smile.

“Nick Fury is a legend,” Nat says, solemnly.

“He was in the Black Panthers,” Steve says, in the sort of tone of voice that a normal person would say _he’s a rocket scientist at NASA_ , or _he hangs out with Beyoncé_.

“He fought in the DC riots in sixty-eight,” says Sam.

“I heard he once escaped from a maximum security prison,” says the girl at the front of the food line, and other people around them start picking it up, adding their own stories.

“The FBI tried to assassinate him but he survived.”

“Nobody knows how he lost his eye!”

“He could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you.”

The cops are still talking to Nick, and as Bucky watches, the shorter one takes a step towards him, gesturing, aggressive. Nick’s standing still, he looks calm. He says something back to the cops, his hands spread out, everything in his body language saying, clear as day, _why are you wasting my time here_?

“Should we,” Steve starts.

“No, you should not go over there,” Sam says. Natasha puts down her plate of food, takes her phone out of her pocket. Bucky sees a few heads turning towards the cops, feels tension growing in the air.

Then he sees Nick give a terse nod, and the cops start to walk away, and Nick comes over to the food stall.

“Stand down, Romanov,” he says, with a small smile, and Nat gives him a grin in return and puts her phone away.

“What did they want this time?” Sam asks.

“Oh, they like to inquire after my health,” Nick says dryly. “Ask how business is going. That gym of yours isn’t in such a nice part of town, Nick. Haven’t seen any strangers hanging around lately, have you? Got your insurance payments up to date?”

“Those Virginia suburbs assholes wouldn’t know a not so nice part of DC if it punched them in the face and stole their wallets,” Sam says. “What can I get you, Nick?”

“Is that tofu? Yeah, throw some hot sauce on top of that for me, will you? Thanks.” He drops a twenty in the donation box, gives Bucky a friendly nod, and goes to sit on a nearby bench, joining a couple of the older homeless guys. One of them has a very small ginger kitten sitting on his shoulder, wearing what looks like a harness and leash made of string. Nick reaches out one finger and strokes the kitten’s head very gently, smiling and cooing at it, as it rubs its ears against his hand.

“ _There’s_ something not everyone knows about Nick Fury,” Sam says.

“What?” Bucky asks, and Sam gives him a smile that makes his stomach feel all warm.

“He’s a cat person.”

 

  
~~~

 

  
Back at the house, later that afternoon, Bucky finds himself in the kitchen with Sam. The table is piled high with dirty cooking pots and leftover food. Everyone else has scattered off to work or study or a meeting – Natasha with a slow wink as she left the room, making him wonder how genuine her “gotta go teach a class” actually was. Well, fuck it. If she’s picked up on his crush enough that she’s pretending to be busy in order to get him and Sam alone in a room together, he should probably grab the opportunity and at least ask the guy about himself.

“Nat said you’re in school to be a therapist?”

“A counsellor, yeah,” Sam says. “And I work part-time, I’m a paramedic at United Medical Center. So if you cut yourself on those, I’m fully qualified to patch you up,” as Bucky tips a handful of knives from their earlier food prep into the sink.

“Wow, you must really wanna fix people,” Bucky says. He doesn’t intend for it to come out sounding sarcastic, but it kind of does. “Sorry,” he adds quickly. “I didn’t mean. I, um.”

“It’s ok,” Sam says. They work in silence for a couple minutes, Bucky sorting through the boxes of used plates and cookware, handing the plastic and metal stuff to Sam for washing, tipping the disposable paper plates and cups into a trash bag.

“What made you want to be a paramedic?” he says, eventually, when the silence starts to feel awkward.

“As a kid I always wanted to be a doctor,” Sam says. “It was the nineties, you know? _ER_ , _Cosby Show_ reruns, all those black professionals on TV. And you’re right, I did always wanna help people.”

“Why didn’t you do it? Become a doctor?”

“My parents couldn’t afford med school,” he says, with a shrug. “They could barely afford community college, but they said if I lived at home and got a part-time job I could train to be a nurse, or an EMT, and they’d help out. But...” he trails off. “I dunno. It didn’t feel _enough_. I was eighteen, I didn’t want to live at home, I felt trapped. Angry. Sick of government housing and always worrying about money. I wanted to be rich and successful. And my parents – you don’t hear what your parents are saying at that age, do you. They were trying to be supportive, realistic, but all I heard was _you’re not good enough. You’ll never get out_.”

He lapses into silence for another long moment, focusing on scrubbing one of the soup pots. “I went to one of those schools where every day is military recruitment day, you know? Half the guys I knew were enlisting. And this dude from the Air Force is there, like, you wanna be a doctor? We’ll train you to be a pararescue medic, you get to jump outta helicopters and save lives. Serve your country, keep people safe, _and_ be more badass than anyone you know.”

There are so many questions Bucky wants to ask. Why did you make that decision? Do you feel like you served your country? What does that mean to you? Do you think we should have been over there in the first place? What’s it like to parachute out of a helicopter?

The whole thing is a mystery to him – there were no military recruiters at his nice little liberal arts focused high school. He never had any close friends or family in the army. His distant cousins in Israel who were all gung-ho over their military service, posing with their guns on Instagram and making borderline-racist comments about Arabs, were regarded by the rest of the family as a mild embarrassment. He realizes, with a prickle of discomfort, that for all the hours he’s spent on anti-war protests, he’s never had a real conversation with a soldier or a veteran. Always assumed that he couldn’t possibly have anything in common with someone who would choose to join the military. Weren’t they all racist patriots who just wanted to kill people, who thought America had a God-given right to invade and control other people’s homelands?

Sam doesn’t seem that way at all. He’s kind, thoughtful, funny. Nothing in his words or actions suggests blind patriotism or a desire to hurt people. Everything he does seems motivated by a strong need to _help_ others, and Bucky could kick himself for making fun of that. The military thing is intriguing, unexpected; and Bucky’s not always the smartest or most well-read person in the room but he’s always enjoyed learning new things, having his preconceptions challenged.

And yeah, maybe there are a few other reasons to ask Sam endless questions and listen to every word he says, like eyes and biceps and the gap between his front teeth and his ready smile.

“How long were you in the Air Force for?”

“Six years. Training, deployments, a few months on reserve. Been out nearly five years, now.”

“Is that like… average? That many years?”

“Six years is minimum enlistment for most people. And more than enough for me,” Sam says, and he smiles, but there’s something in his voice that’s saying, _let’s not go there any further_. “So, now you know my life story, how about you? You always live in New York?”

“Brooklyn,” Bucky says automatically, and Sam laughs.

“Yeah, that’s what Steve always says too. You guys got some neighborhood pride, huh.”

“We all grew up there. Me and Nat and Steve. Known Steve since elementary school. Nat’s parents and my grandparents go to the same synagogue, so I knew her since we were kids in cheder. Um, that’s like Jewish Sunday school.”

“You don’t need to translate for me, I got other Jewish friends,” Sam says, a teasing note in his voice. “I even dated a Jewish boy one time.”

“Wow, you’re a multicultural guy,” Bucky says, trying to keep a lid on the little internal voice that’s screeching _he dated a guy! he likes men!_ Sam’s smiling at him, the remaining dirty dishes lying forgotten between them, and the longer this conversation goes on, the more it’s starting to feel like flirting, like how Bucky used to be able to flirt, back when he had a full set of limbs and functioning social skills.

“I make a pretty good chicken soup too,” Sam says, and Bucky tries to resist the urge to imagine himself sick in bed, with some kind of fantasy flu that makes him look all helpless but still attractive, and Sam bringing him matzo ball soup and helping him to eat and _fucking hell, Barnes. Pull yourself together_.

The table’s finally clear of dirty crockery and Bucky grabs a cloth, starts wiping it down. Sam stacks the last clean salad bowl on top of the mountain of pots on the draining board and opens the fridge, taking out two beers.

“I got reading to do for my counselling class, but you wanna sit out on the porch and drink these first?”

“Sure.”

It’s warm and humid in the kitchen and without really thinking about it, Bucky tips his head to one side, presses the beer bottle against his neck, sighs with relief at the cold touch of the glass. Sam offers him the bottle opener and Bucky puts the beer between his knees, clamping it in place with his thigh muscles so he can snap the top off; some things are still pretty easy with only one hand. He throws the bottle opener gently back to Sam, who to Bucky’s surprise fumbles and nearly drops it. He’s staring at Bucky.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sam says quickly. “Let’s go outside, you, uh, you want some chips or something with that?”

“Sure, thanks.” Was Sam – could Sam be attracted to him, too? For a moment there he’d looked – pressing a cold beer up against your neck and then holding it between your legs could be pretty sexy, Bucky supposes. If it was done by a normal person, and not an anxious amputee who hasn’t washed his hair in several days.

They sit out on the front porch, enjoying chips and beer and the late afternoon sunlight, talking about nothing much, and Sam doesn’t look at him like that again, but it’s nice. Friendly and relaxing and normal, like his life used to be. Maybe like what this new life can be too.

 

  
~~~

 

  
The first thing he notices is a poster on a wall, eye-catching, bright red and blue text on a white background.

_RESIST FASCISM! STOP THE NAZI RALLY!_

There’s a crossed out swastika on either side of the heading, and below it, a picture in what looks like Steve’s style: a crowd of people, marching with signs and banners. Below their feet, more text.

_On the Fourth of July_   
_Neo-Nazi and ‘Alt-Right’ groups are planning a march and rally in central DC_   
_Stand with us to stop them!_   
_Meet at 12 noon, 07/04/2017 at the Washington Monument_   
_#DefendDC_

Bucky keeps walking, around the corner onto a wide avenue, and there’s a table on the sidewalk, covered with neatly folded t-shirts, piles of leaflets and pamphlets, donation buckets. Then he realizes that he recognises one of the people standing by the tables, and just as he catches Sam’s eye, he hears a familiar voice, arguing, as usual.

“Look, obviously I don’t _agree_ with these people, but they’ve still got constitutional rights, they can exercise their freedom of speech,” a middle-aged white guy is saying.

“It’s not a free speech issue, it’s a safety issue,” Steve says. From where Bucky’s standing, he can only see Steve’s back and the back of his head, but he can feel the irritation rising off him like steam. “These people are dangerous. Did you know, since two thousand eight, neo-Nazis and white supremacists have murdered more than two hundred and fifty people in America? Membership of far-right groups has been growing in recent years and events like this –” he waves a leaflet – “just make them feel more powerful and more justified in hurting or killing people.”

“Ok, but you don’t know that everyone who’s coming to this march are neo-Nazis, you can’t just go calling every right-wing person a Nazi,” the guy says.

“Sir, with all due respect,” Steve says, “we do know that there will be neo-Nazis on this march, because we have experience opposing fascism and we know what we’re talking –”

“So, you guys are from antifa?”

“There isn’t – antifa isn’t, like, a membership organisation,” Steve says. “It’s just an abbreviation of anti-fascist, which is something _everybody_ should be – we fought the second world war to stop fascism –”

“You kids fought in World War Two?”

“Figure of speech,” Steve snaps. “ _This country_ has a proud history of fighting fascism and it’s beyond unacceptable that a far-right rally is going to be held in DC and the police aren’t willing to do anything to stop it –”

“You want the police to stop this march? Listen, you ask the police to deny people’s freedom of speech and the next thing you know they’ll be telling you guys you’re not allowed to hold any of _your_ protests either – or hang around on street corners like this.”

“Ok, there the man kinda has a point,” says Sam, and Bucky turns to him. “He’s probably not gonna reach the logical conclusion, though.”

“Which is?”

“Abolish the police,” Sam says, grinning. He’s wearing his USAF t-shirt, a pair of sunglasses hooked into the neck. Old, soft-looking black jeans riding low on his hips, the cuffs tucked into polished leather boots. “What you up to today, Bucky?”

“Just going for a walk. You?”

“Enjoying the sunshine and the free entertainment,” Sam says, nodding towards Steve.

“Fine,” Steve’s saying. “They can exercise their right to free speech, and I’ll exercise mine – by telling them to fuck off outta – ok, thank you, have a nice day,” and then, half under his breath as the man walks off, “and go fuck yourself, buddy.”

“Steven!” Sam’s got his hands planted on his hips like an angry grandmother. “This is a _community engagement_ event! That is not how we engage with the community.”

“That guy isn’t the community, he’s an asshole,” Steve says, stomping back over to the stall. “Hey, Bucky,” he adds, vaguely, picking up another handful of leaflets and turning back towards the flow of pedestrians, ready for his next victim.

“Has he always been like this?” Sam says.

“Oh, he’s mellowed,” Bucky says. “You should’ve seen him as a teenager.”

“Occupy Wall Street, right? You two were right in the middle of that.”

“Feels like a long time ago. We were just kids, really. I don’t think I understood half of what people were talking about.”

“Defend DC, resist the fascist rally,” Steve’s saying on the other side of the stall, holding out flyers to passers-by.

“You guys do much direct action?” Sam says.

“Yeah, some. That’s one thing eighteen year olds are good for, right? Stick ‘em in the front row of the demo cos they’re too dumb to be scared. Brooklyn Bridge, we got arrested. When they cleared out the park I got hit with so much tear gas I puked on myself – yeah, yeah, laugh it up. It wasn’t so funny at the time.”

“You got time to stick around? Help us hand out some flyers?”

“I’m unemployed,” Bucky says, taking the handful of leaflets Sam waves at him. “I’ve got nothing but time.”

 

  
~~~

 

  
“Ok, so,” Bucky says, draining the last of his second beer and reaching for a third. They’re sitting out on the porch again, another warm spring evening. He could get used to this. “First protest you ever went on.”

“Greenpeace,” Sam says, looking a little self-conscious, but rolling with it, raising a fist, “save the whales, man,” then, as Bucky starts laughing, “what? What were you expecting me to say?”

“I… you know, I got no idea,” Bucky says.

“Something a bit more… _urban_ , maybe? Police brutality? Housing rights? Prison reform?”

“You’re trying to make me feel bad, but I bet you have also been on demos for all those things,” Bucky says, and Sam tips back his head and laughs along with him.

“Hey, I can care about black people _and_ whales.”

“I feel like a lot of people at Greenpeace demos maybe care more about whales than they do about black people,” Bucky says.

“Sadly, you are not wrong.”

“So, why Greenpeace? When was this? How old were you?”

“I was six years old,” Sam says.

“You were a _baby_ ,” Bucky exclaims, laughing. Maybe he’s just a little bit tipsy. “Tiny baby Sam wanted to save the whales! How did you even know they needed saving?” Sam ducks his head and mumbles something indistinct. “Sorry, what?”

“My cousin took me to see _Free Willy_ ,” he says, and that’s it, Bucky’s gone, laughing so hard he can barely catch a breath, so loud Sam has to raise his voice, “look, that movie was a big deal, ok, I had a lot of feelings about it – _stop laughing_ –”

“Tiny baby Sam just had a lot of feelings about whales –”

“There is nothing wrong with having a lot of feelings about whales,” Sam says, very dignified.

“Ok, but,” Bucky says, still giggling, “how did you get to the Greenpeace demo? Did you go to your mom and tell her all your feelings about whales? Did you run away and get on the metro by yourself like in a children’s book?”

“My cousin took me.”

“The same cousin who took you to the cinema?”

“Yeah, she was my babysitter, she was kind of a hippie. I don’t think it crossed my parents’ minds she would interpret _babysitting_ to mean _take our kindergartener to a protest in central DC without permission_.”

“What was it like? What do you remember?”

“It was… big, overwhelming,” he says. “There were musicians, a steel drum band, I think. People in costume, big paper mache sea creatures. The whole thing was like a party, it felt like the block parties down in my parents’ neighborhood, just bigger, all these strangers. I remember thinking, where did all these people come from? Who knew there were so many people in DC? Pretty cool that they’d all come out and party in the streets because they cared about animals. I got my face painted.”

“ _As a whale_?”

“Fuck you,” Sam says. Bucky waits. “I had a little orca on one cheek and a blue dolphin on the other, ok,” and Bucky’s crying with laughter _again_.

“Please, please tell me there are photos.”

“You’re never coming to my parents’ apartment.”

“Is the photo on the wall? Sam? Did they blow up the photo of tiny baby Greenpeace Sam in face paint and put it on the wall? Is it _framed_?” Sam shakes his head, ignoring all of Bucky’s very reasonable questions, and sips his beer. “So, was that it from then on? You were an activist from age six?”

“Nah, not really,” Sam says. “I don’t think I went on another protest ’til I got out of the Air Force. Twenty eleven,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “right around the same time you and Rogers started trying to personally bring down capitalism.”

“Occupy got you, too?”

There’s a long silence.

“Iraq got me,” he says, quietly, and Bucky’s about to apologise, change the subject, but he goes on, “Iraq, Afghanistan. ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’. A lot of us got... radicalized, I guess. You know what I mean? Fighting in a war, it’s a cliché, maybe. But it makes you look at things from different angles. A lot of us who joined up young and stupid, we started thinking differently after a while. What were we really doing over there. Who was getting rich off of us. Why was I risking my life on orders from old white men with medals pinned on their nice pressed uniforms.” He’s looking away, picking at the label on his beer bottle. “And then you get home, and people say _thank you for your service_ , but they don’t wanna know how you feel about serving. You still get tailed by the security guard every time you go in the corner store. Everyone in your neighborhood still poor.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. It’s not enough, but it’s better than saying nothing. Sam glances at him, thoughtful, and shrugs.

“Tell me a funny story from Occupy,” he says.

“I mean the whole thing was sort of comical really,” Bucky says, “buncha middle-class anarchists thinking pretending to be homeless would end capitalism,” and Sam reaches over and gives him a gentle shove.

“That’s not funny, that’s depressing,” Sam says, sounding maybe just a little bit drunk himself now, “come on Barnes, I want a _funny_ story.”

“Ok, fine, let me tell you about how Steve met his ex,” and Bucky’s grinning, leaning in towards Sam just a little, and Sam’s starting to smile back. “Peggy’s British, right, she’s back in London now but she was doing study abroad at NYU, during Occupy. And she’s _gorgeous_ , I mean, one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen, and she dresses like it’s the nineteen fifties, you’d see her in the middle of a demo in some vintage dress and her hair all done up, you know?”

“Yeah,” and Sam clinks his beer bottle against Bucky’s, “go on.”

“So we’re all at the park after a big action and everyone’s drinking, you know how it goes, and there’s these two manarchist assholes who are drunker than anyone else, and they’re talking all this shit about girls, like, which girls in the movement are hot and which ones are ugly, who they’d fuck, they’re being pretty gross about it. And I’m sitting next to Steve and I can feel him getting more and more pissed, and I know any minute he’s gonna get up and try to like… call these guys out and probably punch them, and I’m gonna have to save his ass, as usual. Anyway, so, then Peggy walks by, and she’s wearing this tight red dress, and one of the drunk guys points right at her and he says –” Bucky pauses for dramatic effect – “he says, _I’d smash that pussy like a Starbucks window_ –”

“No he _didn’t_ ,” and Sam’s face is a picture, the perfect mixture of disgust and hilarity.

“Oh, he fuckin’ did. And Steve, like, _leaps_ to his feet, like he’s gonna murder the guy but he doesn’t get a chance to even try, cos Peggy lays him _out_. One punch to the face and he goes flying. Knocked out cold.” Bucky drains the last of his beer. “And Peggy’s just standing there, all calm, shaking her hand out, and Steve’s looking at her like – like one of those cartoons, giant hearts in his eyes, you know? Adorable.”

“How long were they together?”

“’Bout a year. She was in New York… eight months? I think? Then they tried to do the long-distance thing, but...”

“Oh yeah. I know how that goes.” Sam picks up another beer, waves it in Bucky’s direction, but he shakes his head. Three is probably more than enough. “Do you miss it? Occupy, direct action?”

“What, the,” Bucky gestures vaguely. “Smashy stuff?”

“Yeah, you know,” Sam says. “Kicking in bank windows and fighting cops.”  
  
“Ah, I dunno. I don’t know how effective I’d be at fighting the cops, these days.” He considers saying, _it didn’t go so well for me last time_ , but that’s… that’s a whole can of worms he’s not up for clawing open right now.

“Natasha says you’re making good progress in her class.”

“Yeah, sure. Last week I won a bout against a guy with no legs,” Bucky says. He’s aware he’s being an asshole, ruining the nice atmosphere, but it’s hard to stop himself. Sometimes it feels like when he lost his arm, all that was nice about his personality went with it.

“Hey, I’ve met that guy,” Sam says. “He used to be in the Marines.”

“Ten years ago.”

“Last time I was in combat was more’n five years ago. You don’t think I could hold my own against some cops?” Sam pushes up his t-shirt sleeve, flexes, makes like he’s going to plant a kiss on his own bicep and it’s a joke, Bucky knows it’s a joke, but the back of his neck feels hot and he can’t look away.

“Ok, ok,” he manages, mouth dry. “Someone starts a riot, I’ll make sure you’re standing in front of me.”

“Shit, Barnes. You just gonna use the nearest black guy as your human shield? What kind of social justice warrior are you?”

“Steve’s too small to be a human shield and Nat’ll be too busy garotting the cops with their own zip ties, sorry, you’re my best option to stay alive.”

They’re smiling at each other and Bucky feels warm and buzzed and almost proud of himself, for keeping the conversation flowing, for getting Sam to smile at him like that, for how the moment’s stretching out, soft and full of potential.

“I’m covering Natasha’s class in a couple weeks,” Sam says. “I can teach you some moves that won’t require a human shield.”

“Yeah, you can _teach me some moves_ ,” Bucky says with a wink, and Sam chokes on his beer, laughing.


	5. May 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this chapter onwards, those potentially triggering tags start to kick in - particularly the recreational drug use, at this point, though Bucky's internalised ableism also gets a bit more detailed and intense. Please take care of yourselves, read responsibly, and let me know if you would like more detailed content notes.

“Ok, guys,” Sam says, “the main thing Natasha asked me to focus on with you today is defending yourselves from attacks with weapons.”

Nat’s class has grown in the last couple months, and there are seven other students today, making nine people including Bucky and Sam. They’re sitting in a loose circle, most of them on the floor, two in their wheelchairs, finishing off their warm-up stretches. It’s hot in the small studio, and most people are wearing shorts or leggings, tank tops. Sam in a loose, soft, sleeveless shirt is _something else_. Bucky can’t even look at him without feeling like he’s going to embarrass himself in some way.

“First thing,” Sam says, and Bucky tries to focus, “unless you have a lot of experience using weapons yourself, your best option if someone comes at you with a knife or a gun is gonna be to get away, quick as you can, without getting hurt. So don’t neglect your cardio, running away is one of your top self-defense skills.”

“Or wheeling away,” Charles interrupts, making his sports chair tip backwards and forwards, as if to emphasise his point.

“Or wheeling away, I apologise,” Sam corrects himself, grinning. He’s looking around the circle, making eye contact with everyone in turn. “I know there’s a lot of different levels of experience and training in the room. For some of you this might all be new. Some of you might be re-learning how to use these skills taking your disability into account. Some of you can probably teach me some stuff, and that’s great, we’re all here to learn together. Today’s about basic self-defense techniques, but if anyone wants to learn more, let me know at the end and we can set up another session. I also know a guy who works at a range, if any of you want to learn how to shoot.”

There’s a duffle bag on the floor by Sam’s side, and as he’s talking, he pulls it around in front of him. “Using weapons and being around weapons can be uncomfortable or triggering, so if you wanna take a break, just step out of the room, take whatever time you need.” He unzips the bag and looks through it, turning a few objects over before pulling out – ok, yeah, that’s a big fucking knife.

“These are all props, toys,” Sam says, catching Bucky’s eye and giving him a reassuring smile. “Nobody should be getting injured today, unless you drop an airsoft gun on your foot.” He flips the knife, changing his grip, and stabs the point against his thigh, making the rubber blade bend. He looks around the circle. “Misty, will you help me demo?”

“Sure,” she says, getting smoothly to her feet. Sam gets up as well, and they face each other, the knife held loosely in his hand.

“Remember, option one is to keep out of range,” Sam says. “They have to get close to you to use the knife, so, we’re thinking about getting away, drawing attention from bystanders, keeping space between yourself and the weapon.” He’s taking quick little steps towards Misty, jabbing the prop knife towards her, and she’s dodging and retreating, feet steady, eyes on him.

“If they do get close enough to grab you – is that ok?” he asks, and Misty nods. Sam reaches out quick and takes hold of her shirt at the shoulder, pulling her towards him, towards the knife in his right hand that’s arcing up towards her ribs. “If I can grab her like this, it’s gonna be difficult for her to get away quicker than I can stab her, so at this point you need to engage – let’s go again, now I want you to trap the knife,” he says to Misty, and she nods again. This time, when Sam comes in to grab her, her hands are already flying up, slapping his left arm to the side, gripping his right wrist and pushing it back, pinning the hand holding the knife against his own side.

“Yeah, perfect,” and Sam steps back. “Y’all saw what Misty did there? She held my arm back, pinned it down so the knife was next to my body, not hers. Ok, let’s do that a few more times, so everyone can see,” and they’re moving again, steady and powerful. Bucky’s got a rollercoaster feeling in his stomach, a mix of emotions in his head, awe and lust and jealousy. Wishing Sam would move close to him like that, wishing he had Misty’s skill and strength.

Something touches his leg, and he glances sideways. Xi’an is sitting on his right, and she’s tapping her prosthetic foot gently against Bucky’s ankle.

“What,” Bucky says, under his breath.

“How do I get to be the filling in that sandwich,” she says, gazing at Sam and Misty, and Bucky tries to hold back a laugh, ducking his head as Sam turns back to the group.

“So, my next question,” Sam says. “What’s Misty got in her favor that most people don’t have?”

“Police academy training,” someone says, and the group laughs.

“What else?”

“A metal fuckin’ arm,” Bucky says, and Sam points at him.

“Is the answer I was looking for, thank you. Think about it, those of you with prosthetics, what can you do that someone with a regular flesh and blood arm or leg wouldn’t be able to do?”

They try out a few different moves. Misty uses her right arm to block the knife directly, shoving it away, letting it slide along her arm, grabbing hold of the blade with her right hand.

“Now because Misty’s got that police academy training, and she’s got a few years martial arts practice, she can take this up a step. Disarm me,” Sam says to her, and they start to move faster, Sam dodging to left and right, stabbing at her more aggressively. There’s a moment when he almost grabs hold of her again, but she’s too fast to be grabbed; twisting away from his hand, she slips behind him, taking hold of his right arm and shoving it up behind his back, pushing him down to his knees on the floor. The knife falls out of his hand and hits the crash mat with a soft thud. Bucky thinks he hears Xi’an make a very small whimpering noise. He hopes to god he isn’t blushing.

“Ow,” Sam complains, letting Misty help him back to his feet, but he’s still smiling as he looks around at the class. “Ok, get into pairs, guys. Each pair take a prop knife and try out the first defensive move we showed you, trapping the attacker’s arm against their side, ok? Do it slow a few times so you get the feeling of the move.”

Bucky and Xi’an pair up. The prop knife she pulls out of the duffle bag is bright pink plastic, with a ribbed handle that makes it look like something you’d pick up in a sex shop. She waggles it back and forth, raising her eyebrows; and the first few times she tries to attack Bucky with it, they both start giggling. They’ve just barely got themselves under control and started to take it seriously when Sam comes over and separates them, sending Xi’an and the dildo knife across the room to practice with Misty instead.

“Let’s see what you can do,” Sam says. He’s bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, tossing another prop knife from one hand to the other. There’s a drop of sweat low on his neck, sliding down onto his collarbone, and Bucky wants to lick it off him, wants to take hold of his shirt and pull him in and kiss him stupid. “You wanna try blocking with your left arm?”

“This thing isn’t like Misty’s,” Bucky says. He turns the elbow joint a couple times for Sam to see, opens and closes the claw. “It’s slow as shit, it doesn’t move like a normal arm.”

“You gotta work with what you got,” Sam shrugs. “C’mon, try and block me,” and he’s moving in close and fast, left hand up around the back of Bucky’s neck and right hand jabbing the prop knife upwards and Bucky’s slow, he’s too _slow_ , so before he can even get his arms into position the plastic blade is digging uncomfortably under his ribs and Sam’s pressed up close against him. Strong hands and the smell of fresh sweat and fabric softener. One of Sam’s thighs just touching his, warm through their thin sweatpants. He’s not moving away.

“Um,” Bucky says, and Sam blinks, lets go of him and takes a step back.

“Uh, yeah, that’s – do you wanna try that again?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, not feeling very sure at all. Sam comes forward, and this time Bucky’s determined not to get distracted, he’s keeping his eyes on the rubber knife blade as it swings towards him, and right at the last minute he takes a little step to the side, dodging Sam’s hand that’s reaching for his shoulder. The prosthetic seems to move almost of its own accord, without conscious thought, sweeping up and slamming into the knife, knocking it out of Sam’s hand, and the knife falls to the floor as Sam yelps in pain, stumbling back, holding his wrist.

“Fuck, sorry!”

“Don’t apologize, that was great,” Sam says.

“Are you ok?”

Sam brushes that off. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he says, and his hand comes up to rest on Bucky’s left shoulder, just where the top of his prosthetic meets his skin. “If you’d done that move with a flesh and blood arm, you’d end up in the emergency room. This can be a tool for you, a weapon. You just gotta think about how to use it.” He gives Bucky’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, smiles at him, and walks off to check on some other students. Probably also to send them into states of confused arousal, while he’s at it.

 

  
~~~

 

  
Bucky hangs around at the end of class, letting everyone else leave. Sam’s sitting on the floor, packing the toy weapons back into their bag.

“Do you really think we should be learning to shoot?” Bucky says. “I thought, you know, people like us, aren’t we supposed to be all about gun control?”

“I am all about gun control,” Sam says. He picks up one of the airsoft pistols and spins it around his finger like a movie cowboy. “I’m also all about people knowing how to defend themselves. Look, it’s… this is a strange time, you know? Getting more dangerous all the time. There are people out there who want us dead.”

“You mean like, the alt-right? Like those people who are coming here in July?”

“Among others, yeah,” Sam says. He looks up at Bucky, hesitant, like he’s not sure what he wants to say. It feels awkward.

“How do you and Misty know each other?" Bucky says, to change the subject.

“Oh, she sprung me from jail a couple times,” Sam says, grinning.

“Be serious.”

“I am totally serious, you ask her.”

“Ok, I will,” Bucky says. “Are you coming home, now?”

“Nah, I gotta talk to Fury about something, then I’m gonna swing by the library,” Sam says. “But maybe I’ll see you later.”

 

  
~~~

 

  
The kitchen’s busy as usual when he gets home. Steve’s over by the stove, making coffee. Natasha’s poring over some sheets of paper that look like lists of names and addresses, as are three people Bucky doesn’t recognize – all of them young, skinny, probably college students. A girl with ginger hair and freckles, a dark-skinned black kid in a polo shirt, and a very young looking white boy with an unfortunate attempt at a goatee on his chin, who’s tapping away on a laptop at top speed. Bucky wonders if the screen is just full of scrolling green numbers, like an eighties hacker movie. Nat’s got a pencil in her hand, drawing circles around bits of text and connecting them with arrows and scribbled letters.

“Hey,” Bucky says.

“Hey. Bucky, Pepper, Rhodey, Tony,” Nat says absently, pointing her pencil at each of them in turn.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Buck, you want a coffee?” Steve’s working fast, like he wants his caffeine hit as soon as possible.

“Sure.”

“Tony, what about this guy,” Pepper’s saying, pushing one piece of paper across the table.

“He’s on the maybe list,” Tony says, still typing.

“Yeah, so can we get him off the maybe list and onto yes or no?” Rhodey asks. “We’ve got like a month left to get this intel together, and there’s still hundreds of maybes.”

“Ok, Deep Throat, I’m working on getting your _intel_.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Rhodey says, long-suffering, as Natasha snorts a little laugh, shuffling the papers around the table, making a couple more pencil notes in her quick, barely legible handwriting. Pepper leans over to add another note, her ginger hair clashing against Nat’s darker red.

“Bucky, come sit on the porch,” Steve says. He’s got two cups of coffee in one hand, and as he walks past the table he reaches over Tony’s head and picks up the joint that’s balanced on the edge of an ashtray.

“Hey –”

“Roll another one, we’ve got chronic pain conditions over here,” Steve says, bitchy. Maybe it’s his bad back making him so on edge.

Outside it’s cloudy but warm, and there are a bunch of old cushions and blankets piled up on the porch. Steve lowers himself slowly to sit, leaning back against the front wall of the house, and lights up, taking a long drag, eyes closed. Bucky sips his coffee, enjoying the warmth and quiet. For all that he’s living in Steve’s house, it feels like they see less of each other than when they were in high school, or when he was in college and Steve spent half his life hanging around the dorms. Of course, now Steve’s the one who’s in school, and working a bunch of different part-time gigs to pay the rent, and spending every spare minute trying to hammer the universe into a better shape; Bucky’s just over here sponging off his generosity.

“How was fight club?”

“Hard fuckin’ work,” Bucky says, stretching his arm up and over his head until his joints pop.

“Let me guess,” Steve’s grinning, “you pushed yourself too hard trying to impress a hot guy and now everything hurts?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, Sam wasn’t teaching today?”

“Listen, Rogers, if you’re not gonna help here you can shut the fuck up.”

“Come here,” Steve says, sitting up slightly, motioning to the deck in front of his crossed legs. Bucky shuffles over to sit in front of him, and bites back a groan as Steve’s bony little fingers dig into his left shoulder and start moving in circular motions, repetitive, soothing. “You want?” Steve offers him the joint but Bucky waves it away. It only seems to make him anxious these days. Steve takes a couple more drags and then stubs it out, getting both his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and pressing hard. “Hey. Remember senior year of high school, when my back was really bad?”

“And I had to give you back rubs every day and nag at you until you stopped feeling guilty about it. Yeah.”

“Well, I figure I owe you... I dunno, six months of daily back rubs?”

“Oh yeah, at least.”

They fall into one of their comfortable silences. Steve shifts slightly closer, leaning forward, putting his weight behind the slow movements of his hands.

“I can see what you guys are doing, you know,” Bucky says.

“Yeah?” Steve’s voice is too casual, he’s always been a pathetically bad liar.

“Inviting me to stay when you just happened to have a spare bedroom. Nat getting me cheap physio. Introducing me to all your attractive friends.”

“Huh. I thought me and Natasha were the attractive ones in this friendship group, to be honest.”

Bucky twists around to give Steve the closest thing he can manage to an unimpressed look when his upper body is starting to feel this limp and relaxed.

“Ok, one, I’m telling Sam you said that, and two, I can tell when you’re trying to fix up my life, Rogers. I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve says, biting his lip to hold back a smile, and Bucky is overwhelmed with affection for this stubborn little shit, who would fight to the death for any cause he believes in but can’t admit to being a supportive friend. “But speaking of you and Sam –”

“Shut up and let me take a nap,” Bucky says, leaning back, letting his head fall onto Steve’s shoulder.

“Ok,” Steve says amiably, his hands still rubbing Bucky’s shoulders, and Bucky was mostly kidding about the nap. But he’s worn out, the back rub is relaxing, and the whole Steve-ness of Steve’s presence is so comforting. Maybe he'll just rest his eyes for a minute.

 

  
~~~

 

  
“How’s he doing in class these days?”

“Good. His balance is better, he’s getting stronger too. Hey, I was talking with Nick and Misty earlier.”

“Mm.”

“They want us to meet with some other organizers, next week,” Nat says. “About the big counter-protest.” Steve makes a little scoffing noise. “Don’t be like that. Diversity of tactics, remember?”

“Let’s talk about it later,” Steve says. Bucky’s drifting up out of sleep, not sure he’s following the conversation at all.

“He’s asleep,” Nat says.

“’M not,” Bucky yawns, sitting up. At some point he’d slid sideways, still half leaning on Steve’s lap, half on the cushions scattered across the deck. Steve’s still sitting against the wall, a little notebook and pencil in his hands. Natasha’s squatting beside them, her hair damp from a shower.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Bucky says, slightly surprised to realize it’s the truth. “Time is it?”

“Nearly seven. We’ve got a couple hours.”

“A couple hours ’til what?”

Natasha grins. “You want a haircut?”

 

  
~~~

 

  
The warehouse is already more than half full when they arrive. There are college kids in bright garish outfits and cool black, teenagers shrieking at each other and taking selfies, older punks swapping gossip and drinking beers. The venue looks like it’s been running for a while: the stage at one end of the space looks shabby but sturdy, at least it’s holding up the seven-piece folk punk band currently making a racket on top of it. Two bars, one at each side of the huge open room, are well stocked with kegs and bottles, each wall is covered in graffiti, and the high sloped ceiling holds up a collection of lamps, string lights, and draped fabric.

“Come through to the back,” Steve yells.

There’s a sort of backyard area between one end of the venue and the adjacent warehouse, furnished with picnic benches and a fire pit. People are chatting and smoking, enjoying the spring night air. A bunch of Steve and Nat’s friends are in one corner, sitting and squatting on the floor in a loose circle.

Bucky hangs back for a moment, feeling shy and awkward. It’s been a long time since he got dressed up for a party. His t-shirt is translucently thin, his tight black jeans are more rip than denim. Natasha had sat him down on the bathroom floor and gleefully shaved him an undercut to match her own, putting the rest of his hair up into a loose bun. For the first time in months he’s gone to the effort of putting on a little bit of eyeliner, forcing an earring through the hole in his left ear that had almost closed up.

The view in the mirror had been troubling, incongruous. Looking at his face gave him a little rush of confidence and dumb relief – it’s ok, he’s still got it, he can still be hot. The black eyeliner exaggerating the blue of his eyes, helping him look less pale and tired; the hairstyle making the lines of his cheekbones and jaw look sharp and sexy. Then, almost against his will, his eyes would slip down to the horror show around his left shoulder, and really, who was he kidding. It didn’t matter how good his face looked, if his legs could still look good in ripped jeans, if his chest looked kind of ok in a tight shirt. If anything, the sexy outfit made it worse, a mockery of hotness, of the person he used to be. Gross and ridiculous, to think that a body like his could be sexy. No one – no one nice, normal, or attractive – wanted to fuck amputees.

“Bucky, come sit down,” Steve says, nudging him out of his thoughts. At that moment there’s a lull in the conversation, and Steve’s voice carries over to the group sitting on the ground, making a couple of people’s heads turn. One of them is Sam, and he’s looking at Bucky with this expression on his face that Bucky can’t quite read, sort of surprised and intent, and it feels warm and pleasant and uncomfortable. He wants to look into Sam’s eyes, but somehow it’s too much to look anywhere but his own feet, as he makes his way over to the group and takes a seat on the floor.

“Ok, ladies and gentlemen.” It’s one of the hacker kids who was hanging out in Steve’s kitchen earlier, the white boy with the overly complicated facial hair. He’s wearing a pink pinstripe suit. “Please take your seats, and keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times.” He pulls a baggie from the inside pocket of his jacket and passes it to Natasha, sitting next to him.

“Who is this kid,” Bucky murmurs to Sam, watching as the baggie makes it way around the circle, each person slipping a pill into their mouth, washing them down with shared bottles of water or beer.

“Oh, you ain’t met Tony? His parents own Stark Industries,” Sam says, grinning.

“You’re kidding.”

“For real. He’s our trust fund baby. Calls himself an anarcho-capitalist, we’re all hoping he’ll grow out of it.” Sam takes the pills from Steve, taps two out into his hand, passes one to Bucky. They’re small, dusty purple triangles. “You want one?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. “It’s been a couple years, though. You guys might have to carry me home.” He pops the pill into his mouth, takes a swig of Steve’s beer.

“That’ll make a change from carrying Steve out of a fight,” Natasha says.

“Hey,” Steve objects.

“Nobody’s gonna be fighting tonight,” Sam says. “As long as these are as good as Tony claims.”

“My drugs always live up to the hype, Wilson,” Tony says. He’s already looking incredibly relaxed, loose-limbed and glassy-eyed; maybe he’ll be the one who gets carried home at the end of the night. The warehouse door opens on a wash of sound as more people come out to the smoking space. It sounds like a drum’n’bass track, deep and leisurely and sexy.

“Finally, some real music,” Sam says, getting up. He holds a hand out to Natasha. “Romanov, you dancing?”

“You asking?” Nat grabs his hand and lets him pull her to her feet. “Anyone else?”

“I’ll come for a dance,” Bucky says, surprising himself a little. Nat reaches out to help him up, and the three of them walk back into the club holding hands.

Inside it’s loud and hot and smoky, a haze of sweat and cigarettes and weed rolling over the crowd, brightly colored lights revolving overhead. Sam takes the lead and they push through the crowded dance floor to find a space right in front of the stage.

At first it’s awkward. Bucky can’t remember the last time he danced but he knows for sure it was back before he lost the arm. Physically he’s probably regained enough balance and coordination to be able to dance without falling over – weekly physio and Nat’s coaching are helping with that. The music should be easy to move to, laid-back d’n’b and soul remixes. For a couple minutes he just stands there, hand in his pocket, shuffling his feet in approximately the right rhythm, pushing down the urge to run back outside.

Sam and Nat are dancing up close, still holding hands, grinding a little, and for a moment Bucky is overwhelmed with jealousy and loss. Of all the things he misses, probably top of the list is the kind of relationship Nat and Steve have with their friends, like Bucky used to have with them, with so many others back in activist and queer scenes in New York. The way you get so close to people, when you see each other at your best and your worst, when you drag each other through the shit. When the world is harsh and cold and frightening, so you grab hold of the people closest to you and let all your friendships become just that little bit too intense, too physical, too indefinable. When you’re not even sure sometimes if a person is your friend or your lover or your found family.

But Bucky doesn’t have that any more, isn’t even sure if he wants it. It’s too much, too strong, too heated. He doesn’t fit into configurations like that any more, with his fucked up body and his whole new and exciting level of trauma. So he just watches the people around him dance, and shuffles his feet, and tries to smile.

They’ve been dancing for maybe half an hour when Nat pulls away.

“I’m getting water, you want one?” She touches Bucky’s arm and he almost takes a step back, because somehow her fingertips feel like the softest thing he’s ever felt and that one casual touch sends goosebumps tingling right up to his neck. He takes a deep breath and just breathing feels amazing, like he’s never taken a breath so deep and satisfying before; his whole body feels warm and bright and perfect, there’s energy zipping through his veins, buzzing pleasure.

Sam is looking at him, the club lights bouncing off his perfect skin and his bright smile, he looks – he looks fucking _resplendent_ , Bucky thinks helplessly.

“You’re coming up pretty hard, huh,” Sam says.

“Uh. Fuck, I think I am.”

“I need water, I’ll bring you guys some,” Nat yells, dancing backwards through the crowd.

“You’re amazing,” Sam shouts back. He’s talking to Nat, but he’s still looking at Bucky. Bucky keeps his mouth firmly shut. If he lets himself talk right now all that will come out is an embarrassment of _you’re amazing too, Sam_.

“You don’t like dancing?” Sam says. He’s moved closer to Bucky, leaning in so he doesn’t have to raise his voice.

“I am dancing,” Bucky says, gesturing vaguely towards his own feet.

“If you wanna call that dancing, sure,” Sam says, grinning.

“See how well you dance after losing a limb,” Bucky says, and then can’t help laughing at the guilty look on Sam’s face.

“Wow. Steve didn’t warn me his best friend was such a troll,” Sam says, recovering quickly, and Bucky takes a small step towards him, they’re almost close enough to touch.

“Who are you calling a troll, Wilson?”

Sam’s still smiling, and Bucky’s expecting him to come back at him with another joke, but then his expression changes and suddenly he’s giving Bucky a very different look, a slow up and down appraisal, his lips parting slightly, and then he winks. “Not you, Barnes, that’s for sure.”

For a moment Bucky stares at him, speechless. Then another wave of euphoria sweeps over him and he’s laughing out loud again. A small part of his brain is saying _it isn’t real, it’s just the pill, tomorrow you’ll come down and go back to your fucked-up weird self_ ; but it just feels so good to be like this, to feel free and happy, to flirt with a hot guy in a club, to feel like his whole body is full of pleasure and energy and joy instead of being awkward and crippled and aching.

Sam’s hand is warm on his shoulder, Sam’s hips amazingly, terrifyingly close to Bucky’s own. For a moment it feels like Sam’s gonna kiss him, and this would be a good time for it, right? So if he regrets it tomorrow they can shrug it off, just a friendly kiss between two friends rolling on a dancefloor.

Sam doesn’t kiss him. He takes a step back, smiling, to take the bottle of water that Natasha’s handing to him, and just like that, the moment’s passed.


	6. May 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: drugs, hooking up while on drugs, internalised ableism and self-hatred, brief suicidal thoughts towards the end of the chapter. Feel free to comment or contact me if you think anything else needs warnings.

They head home from the club some time around three in the morning, a whole bunch of friends and acquaintances tagging along. Back at the house the party shows no signs of stopping. There’s a good supply of drugs flowing, mostly out of Tony’s pockets; God bless rich kids trying to piss off their parents. Bucky takes another half a pill and wanders from room to room for a while, wide awake and blissed out, drinking it all in. There are people smoking on the front porch, hanging out in the front hallway. The kitchen is so full of people, passing around snacks and beers and cups of tea, that he can’t get through the door. In the living room, someone’s lit a bunch of candles and the Hamilton Mixtape is playing off a laptop. Natasha’s slow-dancing with a woman Bucky doesn’t recognize, their eyes closed, whispering to each other. They both have their hair down, sweaty and tangled from hours of dancing. As Bucky watches, the girl winds a hand into Nat’s hair and pulls her in for a kiss, they’re both smiling as their mouths meet. Other kids Bucky doesn’t know are curled up in each others’ laps on the couch or on the floor.

He starts to feel thirsty and heads towards the bathroom, hoping it’ll be quieter than the kitchen. Going upstairs he has to clamber over several people sitting on the steps, Steve in the middle of them, holding court.

“This country, right – listen! S’supposed to be a democracy, not, not a fucking oil oligarchy police state ruled by a fascist in a bad hairpiece –”

“How are you still angry when we’ve had so much ecstasy,” Bucky says, as soon as Steve pauses for breath.

“Look,” Steve says, passionately, “Donald Trump, ok, is one of those people I _still hate_ even when I’m on drugs. That’s – that’s just how bad he is,” and Bucky guesses he can’t argue with that logic.

The bathroom is empty and quiet, surprisingly. _Is it really a house party if there are no drunks making out in the bathroom_ , Bucky thinks, and finds himself grinning as he stands up from drinking at the tap, looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are huge and dark, pupils dilated; his bottom lip looks swollen. He must have been biting it.

He looks up a little higher, and notices that their mysterious bathroom graffiti artist has struck again. Everyone who lives in the house denies it’s them, so either Natasha’s lying or it’s a regular visitor. Or, he supposes, a team effort. The lipstick is purple, this time, and the scrawly cursive across the top of the mirror reads, _your body is not an apology_.

Back in the hallway, he considers going to bed. He’s not in the least bit sleepy, but going back downstairs and being surrounded by so many people doesn’t appeal, either. Nat and Steve’s bedroom doors are both closed, but Sam’s is open, and when Bucky takes a step towards it he sees Sam is on his bed, alone, lying back against the pillows, a book in his hands. There’s some music playing softly, some slow soul track.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Sam pushes himself up on his elbows, then swings around so he’s sitting upright on the side of the bed. He looks sleepy and content, eyelids a little heavy.

Bucky’s only seen a few glimpses of Sam’s room, mostly from knocking on the door to let Sam know it was time for dinner. It’s bigger than Bucky’s own tiny attic bedroom and spotlessly clean, from the neatly made bed on one side of the room to the desk and bookcases lining the opposite wall. The music is coming from the desk, where Sam’s phone rests on a mini speaker. Hanging on hooks beside the door are a desert camo duffle bag and a couple of coats. On the wall above the bed there’s a map of the world, a more detailed map of Africa, and a poster of some Black Panther women, their fists raised, with the words, _You have to act as if it was possible to radically change the world. And you have to do it all of the time_.

“Can I,” he starts, just as Sam says, “come in, shut the door.” He wants to go sit beside Sam on his bed, but it feels rude to do that without being invited, so Bucky walks over to the desk and bookshelves. The desk is the only messy part of the room, scattered with papers and pens, books cracked open or bristling with post-it notes and scraps of paper; the bookshelves are crammed full. Sam has books on history, psychology, medicine, feminism, sexuality, social work, race studies, military tactics, critical theory; he’s got novels and poetry and comic books; they’re all jumbled together, no alphabetising or color-coordinating or any other system that Bucky can make out. Titles and brightly-colored spines catch his eye: _Black Anarchism_ , _Democracy Matters_ , _Emergency Care in the Streets_ , _Sister Outsider_ , _Artists Against Police Brutality_ , _A People’s History of the United States_.

There’s a pin board above the desk and Bucky sees a phone bill, what looks like a reading list for a college class – _Introduction to Psychodynamic Counselling_ – and a few photos. That smiling older couple must be Sam’s parents, the young woman with the red-brown braids and the two cute kids in matching raincoats must be his sister, niece and nephew. Sam himself is only in one photo. He’s in uniform and what looks like a parachute harness, head turned to one side, a serious expression on his face. He looks tough and tired, a more heavily muscled and macho version of the man Bucky’s getting to know. The guy beside him in the photo – white, stocky and broad-shouldered – is looking right at the camera, a wide cheeky smile on his face.

“How you feeling?”

“Good. It’s… I’m good.”

“Come and sit,” Sam says, and Bucky sits on the bed beside him, one knee drawn up. “This was what you needed, wasn’t it?”

“Mm?”

“A night out of your own head. Sometimes… you know, I feel like as the resident medic I probably shouldn’t be advising people to boost their serotonin with illegal substances. But sometimes you need the kick, you know? You need a break from yourself.”

“You’re not wrong,” Bucky says. They sit quietly for a couple minutes. Sam’s singing along to the music, just occasional lines, half under his breath, like he doesn’t even fully realize he’s doing it. It’s unbearably cute.

“Sam, I. I really like you,” Bucky blurts out. He has a vague feeling that normally he’d be ashamed of saying it like that, that if he was sober he’d start regretting it and berating himself for sounding like a ten-year-old; but right now it feels fine. Everything’s fine. How could anything not be fine? Maybe that second pill is kicking in.

“Bucky,” Sam says, turning to him. He’s laughing a little bit. “I think you really like everyone right now.”

“That is… possibly true,” Bucky agrees. “Maybe a bit too much? You know? I mean, Steve’s still ranting about fascism, but everyone else turns into hippies who love everyone and believe that everyone’s really a good person at heart. Drugs are bad for social justice, Sam!”

“Oh, we’re talking about social justice?” Maybe this is the drugs as well, but the look in Sam’s eyes is so warm, full of affection. “I thought we were talking about how you _like_ -like me.”

_Oh, fuck it_ , Bucky thinks, and turns so he’s straddling Sam, sitting right up close in his lap. He leans in quick, not giving himself time to back out, and plants a kiss right on Sam’s smiling mouth.

To his overwhelming relief, Sam kisses back hard, no hesitation, like he’d just been waiting for Bucky to make the move. The kiss gets deep and wet and intense pretty fast, Sam’s hands stroking up Bucky’s back under his t-shirt, warm and confident. Bucky shifts his hips, grinds down a little; it feels like Sam’s getting hard.

Bucky is… not. It’s been a thing, since the accident, since the arm. Trauma, major surgery, various resulting emotional problems and a cocktail of painkillers, antidepressants and muscle relaxants will do that to a guy, apparently. He’s been steadily tapering off the drugs, and the whole post-traumatic stress situation is more of a dull background noise than the overwhelming screaming panic it used to be, but normal dick function is still occasional and unpredictable. He’d managed, through a red haze of embarrassment, to ask Helen about it, but she didn’t have much advice beyond _give it time_ and _try not to worry about it_. He’d mentioned it to Natasha months ago, before he ever came to DC, he was drunk at the time and she was hundreds of miles away, it seemed worth a try. The reply had come through several hours later, in her usual style. _baby, i know that u know there r many many ways to have sex w/out involving ur dick. use ur imagination. i believe in u._ And then a whole series of emojis, in which eggplants and tongues featured pretty heavily.

Thinking about that message now, Bucky has to stifle a laugh, and Sam pulls back slightly, his mouth curling up in an answering smile.

“What you thinking?”

“Ah, nothing,” Bucky says. “Just about some good advice Natasha gave me.”

“I don’t know if I trust Natasha’s advice relating to you kissing me,” Sam says, looking faintly alarmed.

“You’re gonna like it,” Bucky says, with a lot more bravado than he’s actually feeling. “Promise.” He shuffles himself backwards, stands; and then gets down on his knees on the bedroom floor, as graceful as he can manage. Drops a kiss onto Sam’s thigh, another right over the zipper of his jeans, then looks up. “Can I?”

Sam’s mouth is open, his breath catches. “Oh, fuck yeah.”

There’s something about giving head, how it’s always different but always somehow the same. The bodies vary, their shapes and sizes and smells, the taste on his tongue, the sounds from his partner’s mouth. The weight of their hands, clutching the sheets, fluttering gently around his head, twisting their fingers into his hair, pushing his head down. Sometimes you could predict how someone would be when you went down on them – confident or shy, passive or demanding. Sometimes someone would drag you in for one of those rough kisses that said, clear as day, that if you were cool with it they’d be slapping you in the face and shoving you to your knees later. One hookup, an amateur boxer with big calloused hands, had stroked Bucky’s hair so softly he could hardly feel it. His senior year girlfriend was five foot nothing of soft curves and the sweetest voice, yet when he licked her just right she would swear like a trucker and clamp her thighs so hard around his head he couldn’t move.

Kneeling on smooth cold bathroom tiles, lying back on a soft bed, rubbing off against couch cushions. Once – one of the more memorable moments from those endless slow summer vacations in Indiana – leaning across from the front passenger seat of a pickup truck, the gear shift sticking into his ribs. Feeling the truck pick up speed, adrenaline thundering in his ears nearly drowning out the godawful country music blaring out of the car stereo.

He used to lean his weight on his left arm, to keep his right hand free.

It’s the emotions of it that stay the same, no matter how much the physical sensations change. The edge of nervousness, particularly with new partners, the need to work out what they like best, to show them how good he can be. The thrill when he gets it right, the warm rush of pride when someone gazes down at him afterwards, smiling, flushed, grateful, happy. The dreamy focused place he slips into where it doesn’t matter that his jaw is aching or his knees getting sore, all that matters is someone else’s pleasure.

Sam’s breathing hard, a hint of sound in the exhales that’s almost a moan. One hand settles on Bucky’s head, firm but not pushing. He could stand to push a little more, actually. Bucky backs off just long enough to mumble “you can pull my hair, I like it,” and then gets back to work, enjoying the way Sam’s fingers tighten, starting to wind into the loose strands of hair slipping out of his messy bun.

“I like your hair like this,” Sam says, breathless. “When you – oh _shit_ – you walked in the yard at the club and I thought, fuck, I wanna pull his hair, I want, ah _fuck, Bucky_ –”

Swallowing is maybe not his favorite aspect of the whole thing, but you know, it is what it is. He grabs the bottle of water helpfully sitting on the bedside cabinet, takes a long drink, and grins up at Sam, who’s still breathing hard, his mouth open, that fantastic wide-eyed post-coital look on his face, like he’s not sure whether to say _sorry_ or _thank you_ or possibly _holy shit that was the best blowjob I ever had, will you marry me?_

“Get up here,” is what he actually says, gently taking Bucky’s arm and pulling him up to sit beside him on the bed, kissing him on the cheek. He puts one hand on Bucky’s thigh and starts moving it upwards, firm and slow, the way that nice guys like Sam do when they really want to grab your dick but don’t want to be pushy. “You want me to return the favor? Or I can just use my hand, whatever you like, baby, I got you.”

“Um, I appreciate the offer,” Bucky says. God, that sounds _so awkward_. He should spend more time sucking dick and less time talking. “But, I, uh, I had one and a half pills and some beers on top of my meds and, unfortunately,” he gestures in what is hopefully an expressive way towards his own crotch, “I think you’d be wasting your time.”

Sam’s hand is still on Bucky’s thigh, but the warm pleasure of it is kind of ruined by the deeply unimpressed look on his face. “You mixed ecstasy and alcohol with what medication?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Bucky argues. “I’m on a low dose. Me and Steve looked up the interactions on Bluelight.” He feels momentarily like a teenager being interrogated by a parent, but he powers through. “I feel fine. Come on, I’m lucid, I’ve been drinking water.” A whole other horrible thought suddenly occurs to him. “I totally consented to, to everything we did! It was great! I’m really into you, Sam, I wanted to suck your dick the first day I got here.”

Sam looks like he’s trying really hard to keep the disapproving look on his face, but he can’t do it. He falls back onto the bed, laughing, one arm thrown across his face, mumbling something that sounds like _teach me to hook up with twenty-five year olds_.

“I’m twenty-four,” Bucky says, delighted. “Do you want to make out again?”

Sam looks up at him, and his laughing face softens into a gentler, affectionate smile. “Yeah, come here.”

They make out for a long time, cuddling close on the bed, legs entwined, Sam running his hands through Bucky’s hair, over and over. Gradually they both strip off their jeans and t-shirts, exposing more and more warm skin to each others’ hands. It feels so nice, so fucking safe and easy. Bucky had almost forgotten how easily he used to be able to do this, to share pleasure with another person, to feel warmth and affection and arousal – because god _damn_ does Sam turn him on, whether his dick knows it or not – maybe in a while, or tomorrow, Sam might want to fuck him? He’s only taken it from another guy a few times but he’s imagining it now, Sam holding him down on the bed and carefully pushing inside and the thought makes him nervous, and excited, and –

“Bucky.”

“Yeah?”

“So, look, I’m sorry about this – this is real good, but I’m getting tired. Do you mind –”

“Oh, yeah, of course. We can go to sleep,” Bucky says. He shifts over on the bed, starting to pull back the blankets, but Sam’s not making any move to help or to lie down, he’s sitting up, an uncomfortable look on his face.

“Sorry, I mean, do you mind going to sleep in your room? I don’t sleep well with someone else in the bed. It’s not you, I mean it’s not personal. I just...” he trails off, he’s looking at his hands, avoiding Bucky’s eyes. _What do you mean it’s not personal_ , Bucky wants to say. _It feels pretty personal to let someone in your bed for sex and then kick them out once you’ve got yours._

He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t want to be an angry asshole at the guy he just hooked up with, but even more, he doesn’t want to show Sam that he’s hurt. If Sam’s regretting it, if he just wanted to get his dick wet one time and now doesn’t have any further use for a crazy, scarred up, socially awkward, three-limbed guy, well, there’s not much Bucky can do. He’s not gonna lie here and try to persuade Sam to change his mind, make the situation even more humiliating than it already is.

“It’s fine,” Bucky says. He finds his t-shirt, tangled in the blankets, pulls it on quickly, looking around for his jeans.

“Sorry. I really –”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Bucky says. Whatever Sam’s about to say, he doesn’t want to hear it. His jeans are on the floor at the end of the bed. He doesn’t want Sam to see how slow he is putting them on, how he struggles to close the button with one hand, so he just scoops them up and gets the hell out of the room, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. Leans against the wall in the corridor, closes his eyes, tells himself that prickly feeling is just tiredness, not tears.

Shit. _Fuck_. He should’ve known it was too good to be true. He doesn’t get to feel that much pleasure and happiness. That’s not his life anymore.

“Hey, Barnes.”

He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out as slow as possible, trying to ground himself, make sure his voice doesn’t shake. “Hey, Nat.”

“What’s up.”

“Nothin’ much.” He opens his eyes. Nat’s standing opposite him in the narrow upstairs hallway, arms folded. She’s changed out of the little floral sundress and combat boots she was wearing for the party, and looks soft and comfortable in a t-shirt and yoga pants, barefoot, face clean of make-up. She’s got that look on her face that she always gets when Bucky or Steve is being a melodramatic asshole: calm, steady. Unimpressed, but not unsympathetic.

“You get lucky?” She’s looking at his bare legs, the pair of jeans clutched in his hand, and Bucky hears himself laugh and it only sounds slightly like a sob.

“I think it’s past my bedtime.”

“Come on, then. Let’s go to sleep,” Natasha says.

Nat’s room is opposite Sam’s, right above the living room. After she leads Bucky in and closes the door, they can still hear voices and music from downstairs, but the room itself feels cool and quiet, soft gray morning light creeping in between the curtains. Nat has a big double bed, piled high with pillows and blankets. Steve is lying back on the far side of the bed, head resting on his hands, watching the sunrise out of the window.

Bucky feels his feet sinking into the soft dark red carpet as he walks over to the bed. It takes a bit of shuffling around but soon they all get situated, Bucky on his back in the middle of the bed, Steve and Nat curled up on each side of him. It’s so soft and comfortable, maybe they can all just stay like this forever.

“What happened with Sam?” Steve asks.

“Why are you such a gossipy old woman,” Bucky groans, trying to elbow Steve in the ribs. “Nat said we were gonna sleep, why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Fine,” Steve says, laughing, wriggling out of reach. “I’ll ask you again tomorrow.”

“It _is_ tomorrow.”

“He’ll be asleep all day, anyway,” Natasha says. They lie there in silence for a few minutes. It feels like they’re outside the normal progression of time. In their own little bubble, their own universe, where they’re high and sleepy and cuddling and nothing else exists. This could be happening right now, or ten years ago, or on another planet.

“Where did you go, Tasha? What were you doing, all those years in Europe?” Bucky says.

“Oh, you know,” Natasha says sleepily. Her voice changes when she’s really high or really tired, deepening, the cadences shifting, slipping into something more like her mother’s voice. “Some good things, some bad things. Some things I don’t talk about.”

“Sh’ws an international super spy,” Steve mumbles, his voice indistinct with tiredness and with how he’s pressing his face into Bucky’s side. “She fought James Bond in a gallery in Paris. Stopped a human trafficking ring in Budapest.”

“I did steal a car one time,” Natasha says. “In Spain.”

“See?” Steve says. “Badass.”

“I got arrested in Morocco. They said they would deport me to Russia, then they realized I had an American passport. Then they decided I was just stupid tourist girl and let me go.”

“What did you do to get arrested?” Bucky asks.

“Things,” Natasha says, smiling into the pillow.

“She was helping refugees cross the border into Melilla,” Steve says. Natasha’s eyes pop open and she lifts her head, propping herself up on one elbow.

“When did I tell you about that?”

“Last time we got high,” Steve says.

“Oh, yes.” She settles back down onto the bed, shuffling closer to Bucky, starting to gently play with a lock of his hair. For a second he remembers Sam’s fingers winding into his hair, yanking on it as he came – Bucky shivers.

“Cold?” Steve says.

“A bit.” They shuffle around again, pulling blankets over themselves. This effort seems like the final straw for Steve – as soon as the blanket settles over him, he rolls over, plants his head on Bucky’s arm and closes his eyes, falling almost immediately asleep.

“So,” Nat says. There’s a look in her eyes that makes Bucky wary. “What _did_ happen with Sam?”

“Ugh, Nat.”

“Go on,” she wheedles, smiling. “You know how I love to gossip about boys.”

“It doesn’t count as gossip if you only ever get other people to tell you their secrets.”

Her voice changes deliberately this time, swooping down a register, into what Bucky always thinks of as her fake Russian proverbs accent. “Other people’s secrets are best kind of gossip.”

Bucky sighs as dramatically as he can without waking Steve up. He looks up towards the window to avoid making eye contact with Nat; the curtain is folded back at one corner, it’s pretty much fully daylight.

“Ok, we kissed, and then I sucked him off, and then he said he doesn’t sleep well with other people in his bed and would I mind going back to my own room.”

“Mm,” says Nat, thoughtfully.

“I mean,” Bucky tries to keep his voice light, “as rejections go, it’s not terrible. He was very polite about it.”

“Are you sure it was a rejection?”

“Nat, I know you have your own special ways of relating to people, but I’m pretty sure ‘thanks for the blowjob, now get out of my room’ is a rejection in anyone’s book.”

“Maybe it’s true? That he doesn’t sleep with people, I mean literally sleep in the same bed? I’ve seen him with lovers before but I don’t remember anyone sleeping over. Not in the last few months since I’ve been here.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Bucky says.

“When have I ever said anything to make you feel better,” Nat says.

Bucky almost laughs, but it gets taken over by a yawn. He turns onto his side, spoons up behind Steve. Nat follows, cuddling close, her breath warm on the back of his neck, soft strong body pressed up against his back, arm flung over his waist. It’s not a bad way to fall asleep.

 

~~~

 

Bucky can tell, before he even manages to open his eyes properly, the comedown is gonna be _brutal_. Everything from the top of his head down to his lower back is one tight, vicious ache, like all the muscles are cramped up into a ball of tension. He’s lying on his left side and the pain in his stump is appalling, an awful feeling of _wrongness_ like the phantom pains he used to get, months back.

He’d wondered idly at some point how his body would respond if he treated it how he used to – carelessly dancing and drinking and fucking and falling asleep in strange places – and apparently the answer is _not well_. Then _oh shit – fucking – Sam –_ and the rush of shame is almost another physical pain in itself, sickness in his stomach and hot dizziness in his head and a feeling like he was standing at the top of a flight of stairs and somebody just gave him a push.

He should’ve just kept on drinking. The party was still going hard when he’d crashed out in Natasha’s room. He should’ve gone downstairs and found some liquor, some more drugs, whatever he could get his hands on that would’ve made him black out and forget every stupid, shameful thing he did and said, all of which are now playing across the inside of his eyelids in glorious technicolor.

He hooked up with _Sam_. Steve and Nat’s _roommate_. He has to _live_ with that guy. They have to eat together and share a bathroom. Bucky doesn’t even have any friends in DC who aren’t Steve and Nat and Sam’s friends too. He’s gonna have to see Sam every day for the foreseeable future and every day he’s gonna feel like this, like he exposed himself, and not just that he took his shirt and pants off and let Sam see his scars and opened up his mouth for Sam’s cock, though that’s bad enough, but something deeper, more personal. Like he unzipped himself and let his guts spill out. Saying _I really like you_ and _you can pull my hair_ and _I’ve wanted this since I first saw you_. Offering himself up all vulnerable and soft. He wants to _die_.

It’s very quiet. He opens his eyes, wincing, the sunlight like a knife through his head. The room – the bed – is empty. What time is it. What _day_ is it. He fumbles on the nightstand for his phone, which informs him with the last 1% of its battery that it’s Sunday, and it’s 1:27 in the afternoon. He sits up slowly, stomach churning, head full of lead and feedback. Manages to get to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain, and walks slowly and unsteadily towards the bathroom. He needs a fucking bath, to ease up the muscle tension and wash off the gross ecstasy sweat.

There’s someone in the bathtub. Fast asleep and fully dressed, in a pink pinstripe suit. “Ugh, what the fuck,” Bucky groans, and the son and heir to one of the world’s biggest tech companies startles awake, narrowly avoiding banging his head on the taps.

“Good morning?”

“It’s one thirty in the afternoon.”

“Even better,” Tony says, sitting up. “Is it still Sunday?”

“Yeah, it’s Sunday. Can you get out of there, please? I need to take a bath.”

“Absolutely,” Tony says, though there are a couple of false starts before he manages to drag himself out of the tub and stand upright. At first he looks half asleep and probably still intoxicated, but then his eyes drift to Bucky’s left shoulder and then snap back up to his face, suddenly alert. “You’re Steve and Natasha’s friend from New York.”

“Yeah.”

“D’you have a prosthetic? What is it, metal, plastic, carbon fiber? What’s the suspension system? Is it myoelectric? Do you know about TMR and neural interfacing? I keep telling my parents, bionic prosthesis is where we should be putting the research dollars right now. We already pretty much cornered the market on 3D printers, so it’s not like production would be –”

“Tony.”

“Yeah.”

“Get the fuck out of my bathroom.”

“Ok, good talk,” Tony says, stepping around Bucky and out into the hallway. “Let me know if you wanna –”

Bucky shuts the door in his face, too exhausted and miserable to even act polite. He needs some hot water and some time alone, to pretend that nobody else exists, that nobody can see him or ask him dumb questions or remember anything he did the night before.

Lying in the bath, looking down at himself. Skinny hips and legs, stomach muscles tensed in the steaming hot water, his skin looks soft and pale between scatterings of dark wiry hair.  All down the left side of his torso is an explosion, a flesh toned splatter painting of scars – surgical around his stump and shoulder, merging into the burn and shrapnel scars lower down. He rotates his left shoulder slowly, hissing at the ache. Stretches up, lifting his stump as far out the water as it’ll go, and makes himself turn his head, looking right at it. Imagines a million dollar bionic prosthesis, articulated joints, pressure sensors, wired up to his brain so it moves with only a thought.

_A better fake arm won’t give you a better life_ , says a voice in his head that sounds remarkably like Natasha in a bad mood, and he wants to laugh and cry at once. He slides even further down in the bath, bending his knees so his head will go right under the water. You can’t be crying if there’s water all over your face already. Opens his eyes under the water and imagines he’s in a movie, some Oscar-bait tear-jerker about a brave young man who overcomes his disability. Movie Bucky would have a girlfriend: beautiful, self-sacrificing, blonde. He’d be moody and distant but would slowly be won over by the love of a good woman and would shed a single manly tear as she insisted she could still be with a man with only one arm. He wouldn’t run around getting fucked up on pills and deciding it was a good idea to give a blowjob to the first hot guy who was a little bit kind to him. He’d have sorted his life out, by now.

It’s been a year. It’s easy to lose track of dates, these days. He doesn’t have a job, and the only set things in his life are physio, martial arts classes, and meals at roughly regular intervals. But now he’s thinking about it, it’s nearly the end of May. The anniversary was just a few weeks ago and he barely even noticed it.

One year of recovery. One year ago, he was semi-conscious in a hospital bed, eating and pissing through tubes, being wheeled in and out of surgery so many times he’d lost track, losing the ability to tell normal sleep from anesthesia. Becca and Steve camping out on the floor in his room, trying to call Nat, who was somewhere in Europe or North Africa, roughing it on a farm or in a squat, without an internet connection. His grandparents sniping at each other across his hospital bed, what a terrible thing, what was he doing there anyway, who was to blame for this, the Jews or the Irish? And Bucky too drugged up and hurting to make them stop, to play the role he’d always played, the peacemaker, the bright charming child who made everybody get along.

The doctors telling his parents to prepare for the worst. The look on his dad’s face –

Months of punishing physical therapy, gruelling pain, days spent lying in bed staring at the ceiling. All the faded-out friendships, missed opportunities. The sort of casually fucked up relationship with booze and painkillers, like he couldn’t even commit to a proper oxy addiction. The part of him that didn’t – doesn’t – even want to recover, because what is recovery, really? His arm’s not going to grow back. He’s not going to turn back into the person he was before all this bullshit happened.

Recovery is endless, it’s _boring_. Take your meds and do yoga and go to physio and get your eight hours sleep. Think positive and work on yourself and eat healthy and keep a fucking journal. Put treatment cream on your scars and learn to look at yourself in the mirror without wanting to throw up. Be friendly and grateful and good humored, no one likes an angry cripple. Don’t think about how many painkillers are left in the bottle and what a relief it would be if you just took the lot with a fifth of cheap vodka and didn’t have to think about any of this shit anymore. Just keep recovering until you die. What a fucking drag.


	7. June 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: police brutality, racism, gun violence, serious injury. Mostly off-screen, not graphic. Let me know if you would like more detailed warnings.

He feels shitty for the next couple days, low and sore and tearful. Hides away in his room with Netflix and snacks, avoiding the communal rooms, listening for the sounds of everyone else leaving for work before he goes downstairs, hating himself for being so pathetic. He doesn’t want to see Sam’s face, the regret and discomfort, the kind smile; doesn’t want to get let down gently.

Wednesday afternoon he gets out of bed, mostly because he knows how pissed Natasha will be if he doesn’t show up to class, but it’s a relief to be out of the house and the exercise helps. Pushing himself through Nat’s punishing idea of a workout feels like he’s sweating out the last of the comedown; trying to dodge punches and leg sweeps takes all his concentration and doesn’t leave any brain space for dwelling on self-pity.

After class ends he hurries to shower and change, still not really wanting to talk to anyone. He’s thinking he’ll just walk straight home and have an early night, but when he gets outside Misty’s there, leaning up against the door of her car, arms folded. All it takes is one raised eyebrow to make him hurry over and climb into the front passenger seat.

What started with brief chats over cigarettes or vending machine cokes has become a semi-regular routine, whenever they’re attending the same class and Misty doesn’t have to rush straight off to work or college. Saturday afternoons they usually go to a cafe near the gym, a tiny place with tables and chairs out on the sidewalk, that serves pastries and warm flatbread and strong, bittersweet coffee with sugar and cardamom. Wednesday evenings, they’ve been trying out different dive bars, loading up on greasy bar food and nursing a single beer each – she’s got to drive home afterwards – for an hour or two, swapping idle gossip and telling dumb stories. Childhood adventures, activist anecdotes. It’s not a close friendship, yet; not the deep understanding he has with Steve and Nat, or the intense connection he’d fallen right into with Sam. But it’s nice.

“So what’s going on with you?” Misty asks, once they’re settled into a back corner of the bar, beers and snacks on the table between them.

“I took a bunch of ecstasy and sucked Sam Wilson’s dick and now I’m avoiding everybody at home ‘cause it’s so awkward,” Bucky says, too worn out to be anything but honest.

“Ok, let me just stop you there and tell you how much I don’t want to hear about your sex problems,” she says, and Bucky laughs for the first time since Saturday.

“What about my emotional problems,” he says, leaning on the table, looking up at her, making his eyes go all big and pathetic.

“Let’s be absolutely clear, Barnes, _none_ of your problems are my problem.” She pushes the plastic basket of fries across the table towards him. “Unless you wanna talk about your tragic right hook, I’m here for that.”

“Ugh,” Bucky scowls at her, shoving a small handful of fries in his mouth. “I’m working on it, ok? I nearly died a year ago, gimme a break.”

“No excuses,” she says, and they grin at each other, and clink their beer bottles together.

“I feel bad that you keep buying me coffee and beer,” Bucky says. “You know I can’t – I mean, you know I’d pay you back if I could, right?”

“It’s not about paying back,” she says. “I want drinks and snacks after class and you’re one of the people in the class that doesn’t annoy me.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, mock offended. He knows that’s actually high praise. “I could make you coffee. Or food. Sometime? If you wanted to come back to our place?”

“Yeah, ’cause I want to be trying to enjoy eating a nice meal, in the middle of this whole awkward millennial drama you’re having with Wilson,” she says, and Bucky groans, lets his head fall melodramatically onto the table.

“God, he’s just – he’s too good for me, that’s the problem. It’s fine. It’s just a crush, I’ll get over it.”

“Next time you see him, you just remind him he’s nearly thirty and he shouldn’t be running around breaking kids’ hearts. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it.”

“I’m _twenty-four_ ,” Bucky says. “The problem isn’t the _age difference_ – ok, changing the subject, moving on.”

“Seriously, though,” she says. “Don’t worry about this. A couple coffees or beers a week ain’t gonna break the bank, and… you know. It’s good to feel like a normal person.”

“How long did it take you?”

“What?”

“To feel like a normal person. Again. You know. After.”

“Still waiting,” she says, and Bucky nods. “Still, maybe that’s ok, you know?”

“Yeah.” They eat and drink in silence for a minute. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Is it about your dick or your feelings?”

“Jesus, no. I heard you the first time.”

“Go ahead.”

“How...” it takes him a minute, wanting to get his thoughts in order. “You and Natasha are friends, right? She said you guys hang out sometimes, outside class. How does it – I mean, with people like Nat and Steve – they know you were a cop and you know… I mean, with their feelings about the police. And if they were doing anything. Outside the law. Not that I’m saying they are. I don’t even know all of what they’re up to,” and that feels strange, to not know intimately exactly what Steve is doing in every moment of the day. To not really want to know, because what if Steve’s going somewhere Bucky can’t follow? Somewhere Bucky isn’t wanted?

“You can stop with the disclaimers,” Misty says, looking faintly amused. “I got no interest in getting Natasha or any of her friends in trouble with the law.”

“Good to know.”

“I’m closer with Natasha. I’m friendly with Steve,” she says, thoughtfully, “but sometimes I’ll say hi to him and he gets this look on his face. Like he _wants_ me to start asking him leading questions about illegal activity. Like he’s just waiting for me to prove that cops can never be trusted.”

“Steve is... he can be kinda... all or nothing. You know?”

“I get where he’s coming from, though,” she says.

“You do?”

“You think I don’t have problems with the state of law enforcement in this country? In this city?”

Bucky shrugs, helplessly. “I’m trying to figure some stuff out, I guess. Most of the people I hang out with think the world would be a better place if the police didn’t exist. Before I met you, I never had a conversation with a cop that wasn’t some variation of ‘move along’ or ‘you’re under arrest’.”

“ _Ex_ -cop over here, ok,” she says, making finger guns at him. “Is that what this is about? You want me to prove to you I’m not like all the others?”

“No, I –” he stops, actually thinks about that for a minute. “Yeah, ok, maybe that’s part of it.” Like he’d needed to work out that Sam wasn’t like his mental image of soldiers, maybe. It’s kind of strange, a little shameful, but comforting. Knowing there are people around him who will confound all his expectations and make him look at them with clear eyes.

She leans back in her seat, looking around the room thoughtfully, and takes a long drink of her beer before replying.

“A lot of us go into it for good reasons. Not all, but a lot. I wanted to help people, for real. And I thought the way to do that was to become a cop. Protecting the vulnerable, catching the bad guys. Look, Bucky. You’re smart, I know who you hang out with, I know what happened to you. I don’t gotta tell you about corruption or brutality or racism in the force. I ain’t gonna defend the police like everything’s just fine, and I ain’t gonna pretend like I’m anything special. There’s plenty of cops like I was. Went in with good intentions, now they’re just keeping their heads down, taking the paycheck, pretending they don’t see the bullshit. If it hadn’t been for this –” she gestures with her prosthetic – “then maybe I’d still be one of them. Maybe I’m kidding myself to think that being a lawyer will be any different.”

“Maybe the whole system’s fucked,” Bucky suggests.

“I’ll drink to that,” Misty says, and turns towards the bar. “You want another? What –” she cuts herself off, digging in her pocket for the phone that’s started ringing. “Sorry, let me just – oh hey, it’s your boyfriend.” _Fuck you_ , Bucky mouths at her across the table, smiling despite himself.

“Hey, Sam. What’s up,” and Bucky can’t hear what Sam’s saying, but he sees the smile drop off Misty’s face like she’s been slapped. “ _What_? What happened?” She listens, shaking her head slightly, sitting up straighter, tense and ready to move. “Ok, which hospital? Can he have visitors?”

 _Steve,_ Bucky thinks for a second, his stomach dropping, but surely if Steve was in hospital someone would have called _him_ first. He pulls his own phone out of his gym bag, but he doesn’t have any missed calls or texts.

“I’m with Bucky, should I bring him?” Misty’s asking. “Ok, thanks Sam. Yeah, sit tight. We’ll be there soon.” She hangs up, digging in her pocket for money, fumbling her phone from one hand to the other, uncharacteristically clumsy. “Fuck, _fuck_ ,” and then she’s dropped everything, phone and bills and coins clattering onto the table. Her elbows slam onto the table, one dull thud and one sharper metallic clunk, and she buries her face in her hands.

“What’s happened?” Bucky says. In their two months of regular after-class hangouts, he’s never seen Misty like this. She’s always so poised, dry humor and badass confidence. She takes a long deep breath, pushes her hair back.

“Nick Fury’s in hospital.”

  


~~~

  


Fury in a hospital bed looks small, old, vulnerable; and there’s something so wrong about that sight. Bucky’s used to seeing him striding around the gym like a benevolent dictator. Destroying guys half his age at bench press. Coaching kids in boxing and weight training with a steady, no-nonsense tough love that makes them look up at him with adoration, hanging on his every word.

Now he’s asleep, or unconscious. A tube going into his nose, a drip into his arm. There are cuts and bruises on his face, bandages on his head, a cast and a sling wrapping his left arm. He’s wearing a hospital gown, his black leather duster draped over the end of the bed. His eye patch is missing.

Sam is sitting beside the bed. He’s wearing his paramedic uniform, and it looks creased and grubby, like he’s just come off a long and punishing shift. The look on his face says the same – exhausted, worn out, angry.

He looks up at Bucky and their eyes meet, and Bucky realizes this is the first time he’s really seen Sam since the party. He doesn’t know what to say. Sam’s eyes narrow, and he shakes his head slightly, like he’s warning Bucky off speaking. Bucky looks at the floor. His face feels hot. Sam could give him some credit, he’s not about to bring all that up right now, not with Fury lying there unconscious.

“What happened?” Misty asks.

“I don’t know the whole story,” Sam says, quietly. He stands up, comes over to where Bucky and Misty are standing. “He was driving, cops pulled him over. Bystander called for an ambulance. He was unconscious when we got there. Fractured clavicle and humerus, cracked ribs, internal bleeding, concussion,” he lists off the injuries calmly, almost emotionless, and Bucky feels like he’s getting a glimpse of another side of Sam, the part of him that can keep his cool in the face of unimaginable pain and trauma. Pararescue, paramedic, professional life saver. Then the facade cracks, and he’s just a man at the bedside of a friend, worried and furious. “They _shot out his windshield_ , Misty. He was lying on the side of the road and a cop was standing over him with his gun out. It took us five minutes to persuade them to even let us get a proper look at him. They could’ve killed him.”

“Do you know who stopped him? Did you recognise them?”

“What’s it matter,” Sam says. “Knowing which cops did this won’t stop it from happening again. Could’ve been any of them. They can all do shit like this. They know they can get away with it.”

For a moment Misty looks frustrated, but she presses her lips together and nods. “You want me to make some calls, you just let me know.”

Sam shakes his head, but doesn’t argue. In the tense silence there’s a low exhale, the sound of movement, bedsheets shuffling against each other, and they all look back at the bed.

“Wilson? That you?”

“Yeah, Nick, I’m here,” and Sam is back at the side of the bed in a flash, sitting back down, reaching out to put a gentle hand on Nick’s uninjured arm. His right eye opens, slowly.

“Oh good, I’m still alive,” he says, turning his head slightly to look Sam up and down. “Thanks to you, I guess?”

“Just doing my job,” Sam says, sounding a little choked up.

“And no thanks to DC's finest,” Misty says. “How you feeling, Nick?”

“Did I get shot?”

“No,” Sam says. “Close call, though.”

“Who was it, Nick? Who stopped you?”

“No idea. Not,” he looks up, catches Bucky’s eye. Looks back at Sam. “Not anyone I recognized,” he says, slowly.

“Would you recognise them? If you saw them again?”

“You’re not interviewing him,” Sam says, irritable, and Misty sighs, sits down on the other side of the bed.

“Sorry. Old habits.”

Bucky’s not sure what to say. He takes a couple steps closer to the bed, and Nick looks at him again.

“It’s Barnes, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says.

“This is familiar territory for you, I guess,” Nick says, with a glance around the little curtained cubicle, and that’s the moment when it actually hits him, that they’re in a hospital, he’s in a hospital, for the first time since –

“I gotta – sorry – I’ll be back in a minute,” Bucky says, and almost runs out of the room.

  


~~~

  


He makes it as far as the parking lot before he manages to stop moving, slumping onto a helpfully placed wooden bench and resting his head in his hand. He’s breathing way too fast, adrenaline prickling up the back of his neck. Fucking hospitals. Fucking hospitals, fucking _cops_ , when is this shit going to _stop_?

It takes a few minutes to get his breathing under control, to get his heart rate back to something close to normal. There are people and cars moving everywhere, noises, _sirens –_ but eventually he’s able to sit up, feel some of the tension drain away.

“Hey,” and Misty sits down beside him, bumping her shoulder gently against his.

“Sorry,” Bucky says.

“For what?”

“You didn’t have to come out here to look after me.”

“I didn’t enjoy being in there either,” she says, and that makes sense. She must have some pretty fucked up hospital memories too.

“Is Sam ok? Do you think?”

“I don’t think anybody’s really gonna be ok in the middle of a situation like this,” she says.

“Is there anything I… I can go back in there. If you think I should.”

“No, it’s ok. Some friends of Nick’s just arrived, I think it’s as under control as it’s gonna be. Come on,” she says, getting up. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll give you a ride home.”

They’re more than half way back to the house before either of them speak.

“The whole system’s fucked, right,” Misty says, and makes a choked little sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. When Bucky turns to look at her, her lips are pressed together as if to stop another sound from escaping, and she’s looking dead ahead at the road. Her hands, perfect ten-and-two on the steering wheel, are holding on so tight her knuckles are standing out, skin stretched over sharp points.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, quietly. It doesn’t feel like there’s much else to say.

  


~~~

  


Around the end of June it gets hot. Bucky takes to spending as much time as possible at Shield, or in the local library, two places where the AC is always on and nobody expects him to spend money. In the evenings when it’s cooler he goes for long walks around the city, or stays in his room, watching shows and reading and going to sleep early. It feels like he barely sees Steve, Natasha or Sam for more than a few minutes, these days, before they’re back out the door again, for a meeting or a leaflet distro or god knows what.

There’s a tension in the air, a weird intensity that he can’t quite interpret, hanging over the city like smog. Almost every day there’s a protest, or some conflict between the public and the police, or some new rumor about the alt-right demonstration coming on the Fourth of July. Someone shares cell phone footage online, of Nick Fury being dragged from his car and beaten by the cops. It makes it onto the nightly news. Bucky’s nightmares are getting worse.

One afternoon, he’s heading out for his physical therapy session, but the sound of voices from the kitchen makes him pause. The door is cracked open, and Steve’s voice carries, clear and angry, and Bucky knows he should probably keep walking, but he stops to listen. Just for a moment.

“– after him deliberately,” Steve’s saying. “It was Pierce, it was because he met with Pierce.”

“You don’t know that,” Natasha says.

“What, you think it was – a _coincidence_? They just happened to stop _him_? Right after –”

“No, Steve, it wasn’t a coincidence, it was _racism_ ,” Sam says.

“Of course, I’m not denying that, but they know how important he is,” Steve says, and Bucky may not be following all the ins and outs of this argument but he knows that stubborn tone in Steve’s voice.

Sam sighs. “Maybe – ok, maybe you’re right. But what do you want to _do_ about it? On top of everything we’re already trying to get done? He’s home from the hospital, he’s got a lawyer.”

“It might make sense,” Nat says. “Trying to get him out of the way before the Fourth.”

“Look, guys, I gotta go to work,” Sam says. “We can pick this up at the meeting,” and Bucky hears a chair scraping on the floor. Then footsteps coming towards the hallway, and like a paranoid idiot he turns and scurries right out of the front door. On the front porch he pauses for a second – should he keep walking? Maybe Sam will go upstairs to his room before he leaves for work, and Bucky could take a moment to –

“Hey,” Sam says from behind him, and Bucky turns around slowly to see him standing in the front doorway, this sort of quizzical look on his face. He’s in his paramedic uniform, backpack slung over one shoulder, combat boots on his feet; he looks so fine Bucky can’t even handle it.

“Hey.”

“You going out?”

“PT,” Bucky says.

“I’m going to work,” Sam says, unnecessarily. A frustrated expression crosses his face for a moment, he puts his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. This must be the worst conversation any two people have ever had.

“Walk with me to the Metro,” Sam says. “I mean, if you want. It’s on your way.”

 _Oh god please absolutely not_ , says Bucky’s voice in his head, but he makes himself nod. Sam pulls the front door shut behind him and they head off together, walking side by side. They make it to the corner in silence, but as they turn onto the next street Sam clears his throat, awkward.

“I think we should talk about –”

“No,” Bucky says, abrupt and too loud.

Sam stops walking, turns.

“‘No’?” He raises one eyebrow, and _wow_ , Bucky should really not find that unimpressed look as arousing as he does.

“Um, I mean, not now?”

Someone brushes past Bucky, muttering something about blocking the sidewalk.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Sam says, as they start walking again.

“The party,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, you don’t think we should talk about that?”

“I just mean, you’re on your way to work, and everyone’s so busy at the moment, and there’s all the stuff going on with Nick,” Bucky says. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to make time to talk with me, with everything else that’s happening.”

“I can think about more than one thing at once,” Sam says, sounding irritated.

“Sorry.”

“No, I mean –” he stops, and then walk in silence for a minute. “I want to fix this,” he continues. “Maybe now isn’t the best time, but I’d like us to talk soon.”

 _What’s to fix_ , Bucky thinks. _I’m a fuckup and you’re too good for me_.

“If nothing else, we gotta live together,” Sam says. They’ve arrived outside the Metro station, and Sam turns to Bucky as he speaks. “I want my home to be a place where we can all get along and Natasha doesn’t murder me for hurting you, ok?” He opens his arms, offering a hug, and Bucky steps into it, letting Sam wrap him up and hold him close. It feels warm and safe and Sam smells really good and Bucky just wants to melt into his arms and stay there forever.

“I’ll see you soon, ok,” Sam says, letting go, and before Bucky can even think of anything to say in response, he’s walked into the Metro station without looking back.

  


~~~

  


Everyone at Shield is stressed out. Maria, the assistant manager, is running the place in Nick’s absence, and the other staff are scrambling to cover her job and keep everything on track. Bucky’s PT session gets interrupted three times by people needing to ask Helen questions, and she seems preoccupied, her mind elsewhere as she runs Bucky through his usual set of exercises like clockwork.

Misty arrives for her own PT session just as Bucky is leaving. She looks exhausted, bags under her eyes and tension in her shoulders, but she manages a smile and a gentle fistbump with her prosthetic.

“How are you doing? How’s Nick?”

“He’s getting better,” she says, but she still looks worried. “I think he’ll be ok but – his injuries were pretty serious. At his age, you know, it’s...” she trails off, shrugging, and heads into the PT room without saying goodbye.

Bucky goes to the locker room to take his prosthetic off and put a clean shirt on, stops to say hi to a couple of people, and by the time he leaves the gym it’s twilight.

Taking the scenic route home through back streets, avoiding the noise and bustle of the main avenues, he passes a closed-down shop, windows boarded up, and stops. Plastered across the wooden boards are a whole series of posters.  _Steve’s_ posters.

One of them, he remembers seeing a few weeks back, when Steve was handing out leaflets and arguing with members of the public about Nazis. The others are similar. Sharp, intense colours, a lot of black and red. Pictures of people marching, several familiar slogans: _Black Lives Matter, Racism is not Patriotism, This is an Anti-Fascist Area!_ On one poster there’s a line of people holding hands, all dressed head to toe in black, faces hidden behind scarves and balaclavas; and beneath the ubiquitous hashtag – _#DefendDC_ – there’s also a twitter handle, something he doesn’t recall seeing before, on other posters. _@DCAntifa_.

He looks from the familiar poster to the new one. The first poster – the one Steve and Sam had been advertising with their street stall – has a time and a meeting place. There are kids and old people in the picture. It makes the protest look safe, peaceful, well organized. One of those demos where you stand around, do some chanting, let the cops and the stewards keep you in line.

The other poster – with the twitter link, the lack of information about time or place, the picture of black-clad activists lined up across a street – seems to be implying something else.

Had it even crossed his mind that something like this would be organized? That some people would be prepared to physically block the fascists, to fight them in the streets?

Is this what all those closed door meetings were about? Is this why Sam had asked him about direct action and fighting cops? Is this why Nat was so determined to get him back into physio and martial arts?

How is Steve involved in all this?

Who is _DCAntifa_?

He’s vaguely conscious, while standing there deep in thought, of the sound of a car pulling up behind him. Then a voice calls out, not unfriendly, “those your work?”

Bucky turns around. The car parked up directly behind him is a police cruiser, and one cop is getting out of the front seat.


	8. June 29th - 30th, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains wrongful arrest and violence by police officers against someone in custody. Also, anyone who really hates cliffhangers might want to wait until the rest of the story is posted before reading any further.

“He asked you a question, son.”

“Did you put these posters up?” The two cops are both out of the car now, one leaning casually against the open car door, the other coming up onto the sidewalk. Towards Bucky, and for a second he wants to run away, as fast as he can. He pushes the stupid urge away. He hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s got no reason to run. “Well?”

“I was just looking at them,” he says, taking his hand out of his pocket slowly. Holding it out to one side, so the cop can see there’s nothing in his hand. His left shoulder twitches, instinctively wanting to spread out the arm that isn’t there anymore. “I don’t have any glue or tape or anything. I’m just walking home and I stopped to look.”

“Where’s home?”

“Just a few blocks away,” Bucky says, deliberately vague.

“Is that graffiti?” The cop is pointing to the very edge of the boarded up window, where someone’s scrawled, in thick black ink, _#DefendDC_. “Did you do that?”

“Seriously?” It comes out more sarcastic than he’d intended. He hates this power play bullshit, there’s no reason for them to arrest him, they’re just bored and throwing their weight around because they can.

Like those cops did when they pulled Nick’s car over, maybe. A touch of fear twitches up his back. He tries to soften his voice, calm, deferential. “I’m just walking home.”

The cops exchange a look, then the one over by the car slams the door shut, and they’re both coming towards him, one of them has his hand on his belt, on the set of handcuffs clipped there, what the _fuck_. Bucky backs up against the shop front, his hand comes up, instinctive.

“Are you resisting arrest?”

“What are you even arresting me for?”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” one cop says, and the other smirks at Bucky, grabbing him by the shoulder, pulling him forwards, taking his bag off his back. “You got any illegal substances in here?”

“No, of course not,” Bucky says, trying not to flinch as the cop starts patting him down. Satisfied that there’s nothing in his pockets or hidden under his clothes, they march him back towards their car, one guy gripping Bucky’s upper arm, the other holding a handful of his left shirt sleeve.

Back at the car, they pause for a discussion on how to handcuff a guy with only one arm, which Bucky would find pretty funny if it wasn’t happening to him. Eventually they shove him fairly gently into the back seat and cuff his ankles together instead. It’s somehow both better and worse than having his hands cuffed behind his back. It’s good to be able to grab hold of the panic handle and not get thrown around when the car takes a corner at top speed – because of course they drive well over the speed limit with lights and sirens on, even though it’s totally unnecessary – but at the same time there’s something really unpleasant about knowing he won’t be able to walk until they give him permission. It’s an unavoidable physical reminder of how helpless you always are once the cops get their hands on you, and that’s something he could really have happily never experienced again for the rest of his life.

The police station is quiet and he only has to wait for a minute to get booked in, it’s clearly a slow night. They bag up his belongings, take his boots and belt, pat him down again and make him take off his t-shirt so they can check he’s not hiding anything in the pinned up left sleeve. Standing shirtless under bright strip lighting and cold AC and the eyes of four different cops is stressful and shitty, but after a minute of staring at his stump and his scars they let him get dressed again for the photo and fingerprints. Then one of the arresting officers leads him off towards the cells.

“Can I make a phone call?” Bucky asks.

“Later.”

There doesn’t seem much point in arguing. The cell is small, empty, but there’s a thin foam pallet on one of the benches, so he lies down and tries to do some breathing exercises. If they’re going to make him wait for his phone call he might as well try to sleep for a bit.

He dozes uncomfortably, wakes up feeling sore and cold, takes a piss in the disgusting cell toilet. No way to tell how much time has passed when you’re napping in a brightly lit concrete box with no windows. He’s just starting to wonder if it would be worth banging on the door and asking again to use the phone – or if he can get a cup of water – when the door clanks open and a new cop appears.

“Up you get. Sergeant wants to have a chat.”

“Huh?”

The cop rolls her eyes and beckons to him impatiently. “Get up, kid. Don’t keep the officer waiting.”

“I haven’t had my phone call yet. I’m not being questioned without a lawyer.”

“Who said anything about questioned? He just wants to have a chat. Off the record.”

 _Do you think I’m that fucking stupid_ , Bucky thinks. “I’ll wait for my lawyer, thanks.”

The cop gives him a long stare, like she’s trying to decide whether he’s worth the effort of the argument. Bucky shrugs and tries to look like he’s very politely not going to cooperate. After a moment she turns and walks away.

He lies back on the bench and closes his eyes again. They’ll probably leave him to stew for a while before they let him use the phone, hoping he’ll get bored or nervous enough that he’ll agree to this interview disguised as a chat. He’s just starting to drift off when he hears a key turn in a lock, and his eyes snap open to see the cell door swinging open again. The cop standing there is familiar, though it takes Bucky’s tired brain a few moments to process. White guy, stupid spiky Jersey Shore haircut and designer stubble. The cop from the park who asked him if he was a vet. Rumlow.

“I heard you turned down my invitation for a friendly conversation,” he says, smiling in a way that doesn’t look friendly at all.

“I’m waiting for my phone call,” Bucky says. “And a lawyer. Then we’ll have as many friendly conversations as you like.”

“Yeah, ok.” Rumlow’s grin widens, which doesn’t make him look any less threatening. “Come on then. Get up, you can have your fucking phone call.”

Bucky gets to his feet. Finally he can see the end of this shit night approaching. He’ll phone Steve, or Misty; one of them will know which law firms in this town will take a phone call at god knows what time it is and send someone down to the station, a smart lawyer who won’t charge too much and can get him the fuck out of here. He doesn’t struggle or complain when Rumlow takes hold of his arm, viciously tight, and marches him out of the cell just slightly too fast, so he stumbles and almost trips over his own feet. Let the guy have his little power trip, as long as Bucky gets to use the phone.

Rumlow drags him along the hallway, back towards the booking-in desk where there’s a small bank of payphones on the wall – but he doesn’t stop, he keeps walking right past the phones, hustling Bucky along with him.

“Hey!” Bucky protests. “You said –” He tries to pull away, taking a step back, and then yelps in pain as Rumlow’s grip on his arm gets even tighter, is the guy digging his fucking fingernails in?

“Keep walking,” Rumlow says, his voice low and dangerous. Bucky clenches his jaw against the pain, plants his feet as firmly as he can and looks the cop in the eye, shaking his head.

“This guy giving you trouble, Rum?” It’s Rumlow’s partner from the park, the huge guy with the scar on his face. He’s leaning against the desk and smiling slightly, like watching Bucky trying to resist being dragged around is a bit of light entertainment at the tail end of a dull shift.

“Fuck off Rollins, I got this,” and suddenly Rumlow is stepping back and he’s getting behind Bucky and twisting his arm right up behind his back, too hard and fast to resist and _fuck_ it hurts. Bucky’s forced forwards, up against the wall, and he turns his head just quickly enough to avoid breaking his nose and Rumlow’s hissing in his ear, “keep struggling, you little shit, c’mon.”

“You’re gonna break his arm,” Rollins observes, as casually as if he’s remarking on the weather.

“Maybe I will,” Rumlow snarls. “Maybe I’ll snap it in so many places they’ll have to cut this one off as well, how’s that? You won’t be much use to your commie friends with no fucking arms at all, will you?”

He pushes Bucky’s arm an impossible inch higher and it really does feel like it’s gonna break, Bucky’s blinking tears out of his eyes, he’s trying to keep quiet but he’s breathing fast, panicked, shameful little sounds of pain coming out of his mouth on every exhale.

“Ah, get him in the interview room, for fuck’s sake,” Rollins says. “There’s cameras out here.”

Rumlow just grunts in response but he takes a step back and relaxes his hold on Bucky’s arm a little. Bucky’s head is still spinning as Rumlow hustles him down the corridor and into a small room, shoving him into a chair and slapping handcuffs onto his wrist, fixing the second cuff to a loop of metal in the middle of the table.

“Right, let’s talk,” Rumlow begins, leaning over Bucky, but he’s interrupted by a sharp rap on the door frame.

“It’s your break, Sergeant. Go and cool off,” Rollins says dismissively, and Rumlow stomps out of the room, slamming the door.

“Sorry about that,” says Rollins, lowering himself into the chair across the table from Bucky. “He’s got a short temper.”

In spite of the shock, the pain still shooting through his arm and shoulders, Bucky almost laughs. _Honestly_. “So, what, you’re the good cop?”

The guy smiles. It’s not pleasant. “I wouldn’t go that far.” He takes a tape recorder from his pocket and places it on the table between them, switches it on. Then the questions start.

Name, address, date of birth? Where were you born? How long have you been in DC? Do you live here? Where did you live before you moved here? Are you a student? Do you have a job? Are you on welfare? How do you support yourself? Do you get money from your parents? Where do your parents live? Do they know you’re in DC? Do they know you break the law? Did you know graffiti and fly-posting are criminal offences? Have you ever been arrested before? Have you ever been arrested for shoplifting? Have you ever been arrested for assault? Have you ever been arrested on a protest? Do you go to a lot of protests? What were you doing last night? What time did you leave your house? What route did you walk? Who made those posters you were looking at? What does “anti-fascist” mean? Where did you hear about this “alt-right” rally? Why did you decide to put up these posters? What is “DC Antifa”?

Bucky fixes his eyes on a spot of dirt on the wall above the cop’s left shoulder, keeps his face as neutral as possible, breathes through the pain in his arm, and keeps his mouth fucking shut.

It’s hard, harder than people think – even when the cops are acting sympathetic. You’re fighting exhaustion, stress, fear, anxiety; and beneath all that there’s some deeply implanted desire to please, to be helpful to the authority figure, to not get into even more trouble. Part of you wants to answer all the questions, to spill your guts and beg for forgiveness. Part of you can’t help wondering, maybe they really will treat you nicer if you cooperate. Maybe if you start answering, they won’t have to ask so many questions. Maybe they’ll let you go home.

Are you a member of any political parties? Non-governmental organizations? Lobbying groups? How would you describe your political affiliations? Did you vote in the Presidential election? Are you a member of a trade union? Have you ever traveled outside the US, and to which countries? Would you describe yourself as an anarchist? A communist? A socialist? Are you part of antifa? Where are your parents from? What’s your religion? Do you own a gun? Who do you hang out with in DC? Where do they live? Do you have a girlfriend? What is “Food Not Bombs”? What were you doing in Franklin Square on April ninth of this year? Who did you go there with? What’s your relationship to Samuel Wilson?

Bucky can’t help it, his eyes flick over to Rollins, just for a second; and a slow, satisfied smile spreads across the cop’s face like an oil slick.

“So, Sam Wilson. How d’you know him?”

Bucky says nothing.

“How’d you guys meet? Someone introduced you? Mutual friends? He a close friend?”

Bucky says nothing.

Rollins sits back in his chair, stretches his legs out, sighs. “Look, kid. I’m trying to help you here.”

Bucky fucking doubts it.

“I don’t even give a shit about the graffiti, or whatever. Yeah, it’s a crime, but it’s not like you killed someone.” The cop gets up, starts strolling around the room as he talks. “What I’m concerned about – what my boss is concerned about – is domestic terrorism.”

“What –” Bucky bites back the rest of the sentence, silently cursing himself. Rollins squats down beside him, rests one huge hand casually on Bucky’s shoulder, an almost convincing look of sympathy on his face.

“Look, I’m not an expert, son. I leave the legal stuff to the higher-ups. But it seems to me, you’d be best off working with us here. If your friends have gotten into some bad shit, and you don’t tell us about it, you could be looking at conspiracy charges. That’s ten years.”

Bucky’s trying to control his face, trying to stay calm. This has got to be some sort of bullshit bluff. There’s no way Sam – Steve? Nat? All the friendly, disorganized hippies and anarchists and art students who gather round their house? – are _terrorists_ , for god’s sake.

“So.” Rollins’ voice is soft. “You want to tell me who you’re hanging out with in DC?”

Bucky steels himself, forces himself to look the guy dead in the eyes. “I want a phone call. And I want to speak to a lawyer.”

“Ok.” The cop gets to his feet, sighs. “I’ll let the boss know you’re not ready to talk yet.” He picks up his tape recorder and strolls out, locking the door behind him.

 

~~~

 

Some unknown amount of time later, the door opens again, and three men walk in. Bucky thinks he might have drifted off to sleep again briefly, as uncomfortable as it is to doze in a metal chair with his arm cuffed to a table, but he’s wide awake now, glancing from one cop to another.

Two of them – Rumlow and Rollins, of course, because the world won’t give Bucky a break from these fucking guys – take up their positions behind him, leaning against the wall. The third man takes the seat across the table and carefully, almost fastidiously places a tablet on the table between them, the screen dark. He’s in his sixties, maybe, with grayish blond hair and very blue eyes. He looks wealthy, polished, not a hair out of place. Sharply dressed, shiny shoes and a three-piece suit.

“Good morning, Mr Barnes.”

And suddenly very familiar. _Pierce_. The _boss_ Rollins was talking about is Chief of Police, Mayoral candidate, Alexander Pierce. And now he’s here to question Bucky in person. What the hell is going on.

“I’m happy to finally meet you, Mr Barnes. Always good to put a face to a name.”

Pierce switches on the tablet, and Bucky’s own face appears on the screen, in a photo he knows well.

He looks like shit. Pale and exhausted in a hospital bed. Head roughly shaved, left eyebrow burned off. Left arm drowning in bandages and tubes. First week, then, before the third surgery, when they’d given up trying to save the arm. Pierce taps the picture and the screen snaps back to the Post article, the headline big and bold above the picture.

“‘Anti-capitalist protester hospitalized following clash with police,’” Pierce reads. “‘New York University student James Barnes, twenty-three, was rushed to hospital on the evening of May first, when a riot broke out in the financial district. Activists from Occupy Wall Street and other left-wing groups gathered to protest outside JP Morgan bank. Police were forced to intervene after the demonstration became violent, with black-clad anarchists carrying weapons and breaking windows at the front of the bank. Barnes’ family said that his condition is stable, but doctors fear he may lose his left arm.’”

Pierce looks up, quiet, expectant. Bucky says nothing.

“You know, I’ve met so many young people like you, Mr Barnes. Intelligent, principled. My daughter was just the same at your age.” Pierce has a soft smile on his face. “You care about the state of the world, you care about your fellow man. That’s admirable. This country needs young people like you.”

Is he gonna get to the point, Bucky thinks.

“But you don’t realize how vulnerable you are.” Pierce is leaning towards him slightly, the look of fatherly concern in his eyes almost convincing. “Some of these activists, they take advantage of young men like you. They’ll use your idealism and passion, and they’ll put you in dangerous situations,” he gestures in the general direction of Bucky's left shoulder, “as you very well know. They use innocent young people to do their dirty work. They lie to you about what they really stand for, or what they’re willing to do to achieve their aims. It’s very easy to get caught up in something, and not realise what may be going on behind the scenes.”

 _Nobody took advantage of me_ , Bucky thinks, biting his tongue to stay quiet. This is just another tactic. Pierce will have planned this whole thing: got Rumlow to hurt and scare him, then sent Rollins in to play calm and reasonable. Neither of those worked, so now Pierce will bring out the big guns. First, confronting him with his injury and trauma under a veneer of sympathy. Next, probably threats.

“You’ve heard of the National Defense Authorization Act, Mr Barnes?”

Right on cue.

“What am I saying, of course you have,” Pierce is almost chuckling, “you probably went to a demonstration against it, didn’t you?” One of the cops standing behind Bucky snorts a laugh. “So you’ll know,” Pierce says, “that anyone suspected of involvement in a terrorist organization, can be detained indefinitely without charge.”

It’s like he’s been dunked into cold water, dropped from a height. His ears are ringing. He can’t look away from Pierce’s face, the slight smile that no longer looks even a little bit sympathetic, but self-satisfied and vicious.

Indefinite detention. His mind throws together a slideshow of images; cells and barbed wire fences. Prison minibuses and metal boxes in the desert. Men in orange jumpsuits, hands shackled to their waists, black hoods over their heads.

What the fuck have Steve and Natasha and Sam been _doing_?

Pierce presses a button on his tablet, flips through a few more images, stopping on a photo of one of Steve’s posters. He zooms in to the very bottom of the poster, so the whole screen is filled with that twitter name. _DCAntifa_.

“This isn’t common knowledge yet, but the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, have recently classified ‘antifa’ as a terrorist organisation,” Pierce says, and Bucky almost laughs. He can hear Steve’s voice in his head, indignant. _It’s an abbreviation of anti-fascist, which is something everyone should be!_

“Of course, many of the people involved in these groups have good intentions,” Pierce goes on. “But we can’t ignore the fact that there are also people who are willing to go to... extremes. To use violence, to threaten our national security.” Pierce spreads his hands. “We can help you, James. Whatever you’re mixed up in, we can help you get out. We don’t want to see you end up in prison for someone else’s crimes. We don’t want any more people injured.”

The silence is almost unbearable. Bucky can hear the cops behind him breathing, the soft squeak of boot leather as one of them shifts his feet.

“I’m not speaking to you until I see a lawyer,” Bucky says. His voice is very quiet, and almost cracks, but he says it.

Pierce looks almost genuinely disappointed. “I’m sorry to hear that, James. I’m afraid, if you choose not to cooperate, we have no choice but to treat you as a suspect.” He stands, picking up his tablet, tucking his chair back under the table, precise and controlled. He nods at the two cops standing behind Bucky. “Please continue, gentlemen.”

 

~~~

 

They continue. Rollins takes the seat that Pierce vacated, leaning casually on the table, tape recorder back in place between them. He repeats all the same questions he’s already asked, and then asks some new ones. Where did you say your mom was from? When did her family come to the US? Where in Russia were they from? What do your grandparents do? What did they do back in the Soviet Union? Do you still have relatives there? Have you ever been to Russia? Do you speak Russian? Do you speak any other languages?

Occasionally Rumlow will interject, but he tends towards statements rather than questions. _We picked up some kids who were putting up those posters, you know. They’re down the hall right now, telling Inspector Sitwell all about you_.

Tell us about how you lost your arm. What happened? How were you injured? How long were you in hospital? What was the protest about? Why were you there? Who did you go with? Did you know that people were planning to cause criminal damage? Who started the riot? Who decided to attack the police? Have you been at any other demonstrations where police officers were attacked? Have you ever attended a demonstration targeting the police? What are your opinions of law enforcement?

 _Not too fucking positive right now_ , Bucky wants to say.

“You know, you’re in pretty good shape,” Rollins says at one point.

“What’s left of you,” Rumlow adds, sniggering again. He’s taken a couple steps forward, is standing very close. His right hand rests on his belt, an inch from Bucky’s stump. Bucky can’t make out what’s in the holster. A taser? A gun? If he leaned back a little and turned his head he could maybe see. He doesn’t want to see. The questions roll smoothly on. He doesn’t answer any of them. His head’s starting to ache.

Do you work out? Where’s your gym? Do you see a physical therapist? A psychiatrist? Are you receiving Medicaid? Are you able to work? Where were you on April twelfth of this year? May twenty-fifth? Where were you on June eighth? June fifteenth? Last Tuesday? September third, 2015?

Bucky can’t work out how many of the dates actually correspond to things he might have done, how many of them are just plucked from the air. Rollins says each one in the same slow, calm tone. He barely moves. Every now and then, apparently at random, he’ll reach over and fiddle with the tape recorder. Turning it on? Turning it off? There’s no way to tell which questions are going on the record and which ones aren’t. Maybe they’re recording everything. Maybe the tape recorder is a bluff and doesn’t even work. Bucky says nothing. His arm hurts, his back hurts, his mouth is dry, he needs a drink of water. Something tells him he won’t be getting one any time soon. Rumlow won’t stop fucking moving around behind him: one moment standing against the wall, then pacing back and forth, then leaning right over Bucky’s shoulder, sickeningly close.

What’s happening on the Fourth of July? What’s your part in planning this protest? Are you part of this ‘antifa’ group? Who runs this twitter page? Where will this protest be happening? What time? How many people will be there? What organizations are affiliated with this? How do you plan to prevent this right-wing march? Why do you want to stop them from marching? How do you know where they will be in the city?

From time to time the questions get nastier, more personal, things that surely can’t be relevant to any investigation, they’re just trying to trip him up, provoke a response. Rollins’ voice stays even, relaxed. So, is Sam Wilson your boyfriend? There’s a pin on your backpack that says _queer resistance_ , what does that mean? Are you a queer, James? Do you like men? Do you take it up the ass? When did you last get tested for HIV? Have you ever touched a kid?

A couple of times someone knocks on the door, and both cops disappear for a while. What amount of time, he has no clear idea. How much time has passed since he got arrested? Twelve hours, maybe? Surely it can’t be more than a day. Shouldn’t they have to let him go after twenty-four hours?

He feels pathetic, to be so exhausted and confused after such little time. He tries to think about other activists, real revolutionaries, people who were kept in solitary confinement for years, or actually tortured, not just pushed around and threatened a little bit and calmly asked endless questions. He thinks maybe he should be inspired, draw strength from that, but it doesn’t help. It just gives him ideas of how much worse this could get. Would they really lock him up indefinitely? Would they send him to prison, to Gitmo? Would he be able to see his mom?

The door swings back open, interrupting that train of thought. Once again, the two uniformed cops take up their places behind him, and Pierce sits down on the other side of the table.

“James, you must be getting tired.”

No shit.

“I understand, you want to protect your friends,” Pierce says. His face is a picture of sympathy. “But how far does that go? What if someone you know blows up a building? What if one of your friends kills somebody? We respect the right to peacefully protest. We just want to weed out the troublemakers. The people who take things too far. People who commit acts of violence and terrorism, putting everybody in danger. What if other people end up hurt – mutilated – just like you did?

“You know we can make your life very difficult, or we can make it easy. We can have you locked up, or we can let you go today. We can arrest all of your friends and keep them in indefinite detention, or we can, with your help, just make a very few targeted arrests. Just the troublemakers. You can help us, James. You can help us make this city – the whole country – safer. Better.”

And suddenly it’s too much. He can’t just sit and listen to this in silence any longer.

“No.”

“No?”

“No fucking way,” Bucky says. A small part of his brain is yelling at him to stop talking, this is not a good idea, anything you say will be used as evidence. But it’s such a _relief_ , after hours and hours of biting his tongue. “You think all you’ve gotta do is pretend to sympathize with me and I’ll _cooperate_ and, and what? Become your informant?” It’s crystal clear suddenly, what this whole thing is about, what Pierce is really after. He doesn’t want to help Bucky or to lock him up. He wants eyes and ears on the inside. He wants Bucky exhausted and confused, terrified of prison and with just enough doubt planted in his mind about what his friends are doing, that he’ll go home and spy on them.

“You showed me the news article about my arm,” Bucky says. Now he’s started talking he’s not sure how to stop. “Did you forget it was the police who did that to me? It was a cop just like them, taking orders from a senior officer just like you. And now you think you can just drag me in here and get these assholes to play good cop bad cop before you come in, all smooth talking and sympathetic and telling me I’m a victim, trying to convince me my friends are terrorists, and I’ll just roll over and tell you everything you want to know. Well, you know what? You can go _fuck yourself_.”

In the dead silence that follows he hears one of the cops behind him take a step forward, and braces himself, but Pierce stops the guy in his tracks with an upheld hand.

For a moment, Pierce just sits there, still and calm. He’s looking at Bucky like he’s watching a small child have a tantrum, or a subordinate make a fool of himself in public, something mildly embarrassing and distasteful. Then quick as a whip, he leans across the table and his hand flies out and he’s slapped Bucky across the face, so hard that his whole body jerks backwards, pain flaring in his wrist from the handcuff, his head snapping to the side, hair falling over his eyes.

One of the cops starts to laugh but cuts it off abruptly, like Pierce has silenced him with a look. Bucky can hardly process what just happened. It’s like his breath has stopped in his throat. He’s never – it’s not like he’s never been hit before, he’s been in fights, but no one has ever hit him quite like that before, so casual and vicious at once.

Pierce stands up, dusting his hands off on his jacket. “Officer Rollins, come with me, please. Sergeant Rumlow? I think you can step things up a little.”

The door slams shut and locks.

There’s a long silence.

“So, when I saw you in the park,” Rumlow says, conversational. “You tried to throw me off, didn’t you? You said ‘accident’, and I was supposed to think ‘car wreck’. But I knew your face.”

He grabs the stump of Bucky’s left arm, digging his fingers in like he’s feeling for the damaged nerves, twisting, and the pain is awful, sharp and sickening. Bucky’s biting his bottom lip and trying not to scream, his heartbeat’s thundering in his ears like it’s gonna drown out any other sounds, he’s kicking his heels hard against the chair legs. Rumlow’s other hand is in his hair, pulling his whole body up and back, there’s another burst of pain from the metal handcuff on his right wrist, and he’s staring up past Rumlow’s face, there’s a stain on the ceiling the shape of Australia.

“I didn't recognize you at first with all the pretty long hair,” Rumlow says, his voice still chatty, relaxed, like it’s taking him no effort at all to hurt Bucky this much. “You look like even more of a fag now, you know that?”

 _Fuck you fuck you fuck you_ , screams a voice in Bucky’s head. He clamps his mouth shut and tries not to struggle. He’s already screwed himself over by yelling at Pierce, anything else he says will just give them more ammunition.

Rumlow lets go of his arm and his hair and punches him lightly in the back of the head, a joke of a punch, the way a roughhousing dad might hit a kid for acting out. Bucky lets himself slump forward a little, trying to relax the muscles in his shoulders, breathing through it. Pretend you’re at physio and Helen is pushing you hard through the stretching exercises that always make your shoulder ache like hell; pretend you’re back at school and a bigger kid just knocked you down on the football field; pretend you’re anywhere else than here, locked in a room with this homophobic posturing psycho.

“You’re pretty tough, though.” The admiration in Rumlow’s voice makes Bucky feel even more disgusted. “Your fuckin’ arm got blown off and you’re still out here causing trouble. Most of you liberal assholes aren’t that tough.”

 _Don’t call me a liberal, I’m a socialist_ , Bucky thinks, and it’s almost enough to make him smile. He rolls his shoulders back carefully.

“D’you remember it?” Rumlow sounds genuinely curious. “Buddy of mine lost both his legs in Iraq, said he couldn’t remember anything about it.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to fucking talk about it,” Bucky snaps, then instantly regrets opening his mouth. Rumlow laughs, his hand is back on Bucky’s head, tousling his hair. Bucky tries to jerk his head away, but before he can move, Rumlow’s got a handful of his hair again and he’s pushing Bucky forwards this time and his head slams into the metal table so hard his vision goes black.

“Ok, you little bitch,” Rumlow says, “let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about what you and all your little friends got planned for the Fourth of July.” He’s leaning over Bucky, pinning his head against the table with one hand in Bucky’s hair and the other gripping the back of his neck. The pain is overwhelming, pounding, he thinks he might puke. Maybe if he really makes an effort he can twist around far enough to puke on Rumlow. The cop is still talking.

“We know you’re up to something, Barnes. You, Wilson, all your hippie friends, we’ve got eyes on every fucking one of you. You’re planning something and it ain’t just feeding tramps or handing out leaflets.”

Rumlow’s mouth is so close to Bucky’s ear he can feel the cop’s breath and it’s pushing him to the edge of panic. He’s been pushed around by cops before, been knocked down and tear-gassed and had his wrists zip-tied behind his back; but always in public, around friends and reporters and camera phones. He’s been arrested before, but that just meant sitting around with Steve for a few hours before parents or friends came to bail them out. He’s never felt vulnerable like he does right now, exhausted and thirsty and aching, his one good arm cuffed to the table and a guy who could easily beat the shit out of him – has already been easily beating the shit out of him in this interview room with no cameras and had no qualms about threatening to break his arm out in the hallway either – using all his weight to pin him down. He’s struggling to breathe.

“I – I –”

“Yeah?” Rumlow abruptly lets up, taking a step back. “You wanna say something?”

Bucky forces himself to sit up, to turn to the side so he can look Rumlow in the face. His head is throbbing like crazy and it feels like his right eye is already starting to swell shut. He can taste blood in his mouth, must have bitten his tongue, or maybe getting his face slammed into the table has loosened a tooth. Suddenly, on top of all the fear, he’s blindingly, furiously angry. _Fuck_ this guy and his creepy bullshit power trip and his hands in Bucky’s hair and the self-satisfied smirk on his face right now, fuck his confidence that he just has to hurt and scare Bucky for a few minutes to get him to rat out his comrades.

“I want a fucking lawyer,” Bucky says, and spits blood onto Rumlow’s shoes.

The punch in the face is worth it.


	9. July 1st - 3rd, 2017

He’s drifting. Everything hurts. Head swimming and sickening taste of blood in his mouth. He’s lost time again, asleep or knocked out. Concussion would be… not good. They won’t take him to the hospital. They won’t let him out. They’ll keep him locked in this room, handcuffed to the table until he talks or loses his mind. Maybe they’ll kill him. They could do that. Make it look like an accident, or suicide.

A voice cuts through his thoughts. A weirdly familiar voice, sharp and angry, that doesn’t belong in this room.

“Do not try me, Rumlow, I will have the press down here before you can _blink_ –”

Misty – when the hell did Misty get here? – and Rumlow are glaring at each other, he’s lounging in a chair, she’s standing close beside Bucky, her hands on her hips. It’s a stand-off. Maybe they’ll start slapping each other, two kids fighting over a broken toy. Bucky hears himself make a weird high-pitched giggle.

The noise seems to break the tension. Rumlow leans forward like he’s about to say something, but Misty gets in first. “What are you charging him with?”

“Destruction of property, resisting arrest.”

“On what grounds?”

“Two officers saw him, plus CCTV evidence,” Rumlow says, looking smug.

“Oh yeah?” Misty sounds strangely happy about this. “His face visible on the CCTV from the street?”

“Yep.”

“So, I assume these serious injuries will be visible on that footage? Because they were sustained by my client _before_ he was arrested?” Misty leans forward, planting her hands on the table. Her metal hand makes a sharp tap, and Rumlow shifts in his chair slightly, eyes drawn to it. “Because otherwise, Sergeant Rumlow, I think the court will have some questions. If he was caught on CCTV on Thursday night, with no sign of injury, then why is it that after a day in your custody he looks like he’s been hit in the face with a goddamn truck?” Rumlow’s mouth opens and closes a couple times. “Now you sure you want to charge him?”

Rumlow collects himself with some effort. “I’m gonna talk to my CO. Wait here.”

“You do that,” Misty says. As soon as the door slams behind him she turns to Bucky, crouching down beside his chair, one hand gentle on his good shoulder. “I’m getting you outta here, I just want to get some photos of your injuries before we leave. Is that ok?”

“I thought we’d. Established. ’m not the guy who sues the cops,” Bucky says, trying to smile. Talking feels weird. His mouth must be swollen. His whole face must be a horror show.

“I might be,” she says grimly. “Or the person who gets them fired. I _know_ these guys, remember. Rumlow’s been written up for assault and excessive force before. Some good, clear, full color photos of his work all over a nice disabled white kid could be the final straw.”

“Hate being called disabled,” Bucky mumbles. Shit, he didn’t entirely mean to say that out loud. “Take photos. It’s cool.”

Misty gets out her phone and snaps several pictures of his fucked-up face from different angles, then some of the raw skin around his wrist, still cuffed too tightly to the table.

“Can you – sorry. Can I take your t-shirt off?”

“Yeah.”

She puts the phone down and carefully, slowly, pulls his shirt up and over his head. Bucky, equally careful, turns his head to the left, looks down at himself. His left shoulder and stump are covered in red and purple bruises, with fingerprints clearly visible. There’s a clear handprint bruise on his right upper arm as well. Little half-moon cuts where Rumlow had dug his nails in. Bruises all across his chest from the guy’s fists, from the edge of the metal table. His back probably looks just as bad. He vaguely remembers getting punched in the kidneys at some point. Misty doesn’t even blink, just picks up her phone and starts snapping away with the camera, getting some close-ups of the bruises, some shots where the arm injuries and his face are both visible.

Finally she steps back and slips the phone back into her pocket. “That’ll do for now,” she’s pulling his t-shirt back down, hands gentle and steady. “I won’t do anything with the photos without your permission, ok? We can talk later, once you’ve rested up.”

“Sure.” He trusts her, he’s too tired to think about it. “How’d you know I was here?”

“I still got friends in useful places,” she says, with a little twist to her mouth that’s almost a smile. “Took a while to find out what station you were at, then the officer out front kept saying you were helping them with their inquiries and hadn’t requested a lawyer,” Bucky almost smiles too, at the deeply unimpressed tone of her voice, “but we got here in the end. Now we just need to get you home.”

“How long?”

“Nearly thirty-six hours,” and that almost feels like another punch in the gut. “They picked you up Thursday night. It’s Saturday morning now.”

“Misty, they said – they were talking about,” he can’t say it, the fear is blocking his throat. Push through, Barnes, come on. “They said, terrorism charges. Indefinite detention. Can they –”

The door swings open, banging against the wall. Rumlow stalks in, slams a piece of paper on the table and unlocks the cuff from around Bucky’s wrist. “That’s his court ticket. Get the fuck out.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Misty says, smiling.

They shuffle slowly out of the police station, Bucky leaning heavily on Misty the whole way. The feeling of her prosthetic arm around his waist is comforting. He’s seen what she can do with that thing in martial arts class, she’ll be able to hold him up if he falls. She supports him down the street and into the front passenger seat of her car, where he immediately passes out.

 

~~~

 

“Wake up, kiddo. You’re bleeding on my upholstery.” Misty’s voice is soft but Bucky startles just the same, pushing himself to sit upright, regretting it as his head spins wildly.

“Shit, sorry.”

“It’s ok.” She leans over to unclip Bucky’s seat belt. “This is your place, right?”

They’re right outside the house. Misty comes around to help him out of the car, getting his arm around her shoulder and helping him slowly stand up.

“’m’I bleeding on you, now?”

“You’re fine. Let’s get you indoors.”

As they start to move towards the house the front door flies open, and Steve and Sam come running out. Bucky wants to smile, wants to run and hug them, but everything fucking hurts, so he lets Misty help him stagger slowly towards the front steps.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam says.

“What the fuck happened?” says Steve.

“Let’s get him in the house,” Misty says.

Sam is close on his left side, his arm around Bucky’s waist. “I assume he hasn’t seen a doctor?”

“The medic at the police station was unavailable,” Misty says.

“Uh-huh. What a surprise. Ok Bucky, come on. One foot in front of the other. Let’s get you inside and then you can sit down and we'll take a look at you, ok?”

All Bucky has to do is shuffle his feet forwards, and it feels so exhausting and painful he wants to cry, and the furious anxious look on Steve’s face kinda makes him want to cry too, and the way Sam and Misty are holding him up and keeping him safe. His vision blurs a little as they walk him up the steps, but he manages to stay on his feet and keep it together until they get to the living room, where they deposit him carefully on the big squishy couch.

“Are they charging him with anything?” Steve’s voice sounds weirdly far away.

“Destruction of property and resisting arrest. Both misdemeanors, so he’ll need to show up for arraignment on...” she’s reading the paper the cops gave her, then passing it to Steve. “August second. That’s good, buys us some time.”

“Resisting arrest? Are they _kidding_?”

“Trying to cover their asses. Anyone asks how’d he get so beat up, they just say he was resisting. They’re bullshit charges – just a way to string you all along, keep the court case hanging over your heads. Intimidation. I doubt they can make them stick, and even if he gets convicted, they’ll probably just fine him, unless he’s got a serious record already.”

Sam crouches down in front of him. His voice is calm and steady, a lifeline. “Bucky. Can you tell me what hurts?”

“My head,” Bucky mumbles. “Arms, shoulders. He punched me, hit my head on the table. Grabbed my shoulders pretty hard. Twisted my arm up behind my back, said he was gonna break it. Pierce –”

“ _Pierce_ did this to you?” Misty interrupts.

Bucky shakes his head, which is a mistake. Ouch. “Rumlow. But Pierce came in, first. He. I. Sorry, I can’t.”

“It’s ok, it’s ok. Maybe we’ll talk about that later, yeah? No rush. Let’s get you cleaned up first. I’ll get the first aid box,” Sam says. “Steve, go make some herbal tea, enough for everyone.”

Steve still looks like he’s about to explode, but he does as he’s told.

“S’good. Keep Steve busy,” Bucky tells Sam. “Don’t let him go down the precinct and punch cops.”

“Probably wouldn’t end well,” Sam agrees. “You sit still and relax, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Bucky closes his eyes and just lets himself drift for a minute. He feels the couch cushions dip gently as Misty sits down next to him. She just sits quietly, but there’s something comforting about having her there. Maybe because she could beat up anyone who tries to mess with him. He imagines her superhero bionic fist smashing into Rumlow’s face, over and over again, and that’s comforting too.

“You with me?” Sam’s back, kneeling up in front of him on the floor, a first aid kit on the floor beside him. “Keep your head still, just follow my finger with your eyes, ok? That’s good. Can I take your shirt off?”

“You haven’t even bought me a drink,” Bucky says, more out of a sense of obligation than because he thinks it’ll actually make them laugh.

“I sent Steve to make you herbal tea,” Sam says.

“Does Steve even know how to make herbal tea?”

“Yes I do,” says Steve, from the doorway. He comes in and sits next to Bucky on the couch, holding out a mug of tea with a straw so Bucky can drink. It’s his favorite, fresh ginger and honey; and it stings the inside of his mouth like hell but it’s warm and sweet and comforting.

“Listen, I gotta head out,” Misty says. “I’m helping Natasha with her classes today. I can let her know he’s home and ok.”

“He doesn't look ok,” Steve snaps.

“He’s alive,” Misty says shortly.

“Hey, Misty. Thank you –” Bucky starts.

“No need,” she interrupts. She puts one hand on his right shoulder, comforting, just like she did at the police station. “Think about what you want to do with those photos, ok? I’ll let myself out,” she says, as Steve starts getting up. “You guys take care.”

Sam gently moves the cup of tea away and helps Bucky pull his t-shirt up over his head; then pulls on some disposable gloves and starts wiping Bucky’s face, he’s being as gentle as possible but it’s still pretty unpleasant. Bucky curls his hand into a fist and tries not to flinch. The anger and adrenaline that got him through the beatings have totally left the building, he feels drained and grimy and desperately wishes that everything would just stop hurting, even for a minute. His breath hitches and his eyes start prickling. _They hurt me_ , he wants to say, childish and indignant. People aren’t _allowed_ to just hurt people like that.

“Here.” Sam tucks an ice pack gently into Bucky’s hand. “Put that over your left eye to start off, that’s the most fucked up one. Try to keep your hand still so I can do something about this wrist. What did they cuff you with, sandpaper? Amateurs.”

And apparently all it takes to make him laugh instead of cry is Sam being a dick. “You know,” Bucky says, “I’m not sure you’re a real doctor at all.”

“I am a fully trained combat medic, Barnes, you can go fuck yourself. Sit up straight and take slow deep breaths, ok?” Sam’s hands move, warm and gentle over Bucky’s chest and back, which is a pretty good distraction from the pain in his shoulders and head. “I don’t think you’ve got any internal damage here, just gonna have some nasty bruising.” He examines Bucky’s head, very carefully touching each bump and bruise. “Nothing broken, no major head trauma. You’re gonna have a few lumps on your head and two black eyes, but that’s it as far as I can tell.” He looks over at Steve. “I’m guessing they wanted to scare the shit out of him rather than cause any serious damage.”

“What the fuck did they _want_ , though?” Steve says. “Why beat you up? What does that achieve?”

“They wanted me to snitch,” Bucky says. He wants to laugh, at the word, at himself, at the whole crazy situation. “They said – Sam, they said your name –”

“Yeah, they know me, I’m a troublemaker. Don’t worry about that now, Bucky.” Sam’s voice is still calm and soothing, but it’s not enough to distract Bucky from the panic and hysteria, bubbling up inside him, making him feel sick.

“Did they ask about anyone else?” Steve’s voice is tight, tense. “Did they talk about shield?”

_What about a shield_ , Bucky thinks, but then he puts it together – _Shield_ , the martial arts center, Nick Fury, who was attacked by cops, Steve in the kitchen, just a couple days ago, saying _because he met with Pierce_ –

“Buck. Did they mention anyone else by name.”

“No, they. No. Just Sam. Did anyone else get arrested? They said they arrested some kids for putting up posters.”

Steve and Sam look at each other, Sam shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Misty would’ve said something. D’you think they were trying to trick you? Make out that someone else was giving them answers already, so you’d talk?”

“Was there anything else they said, anything else you can remember,” Steve says, and Bucky almost wants to laugh. He was in there for thirty-six hours, and Steve’s wondering if they said _anything else_. They said a whole bunch. They said things he’s scared he might never forget.

“They – they were talking about _terrorism_. Rumlow said – he said he _knew we were up to something_ –” and he’s lost it, he’s laughing, loud and humorless and panicked, gasping for breath. “He thinks he’s the fucking Gestapo –”

“Well, that’s truer than you damn know,” Sam mutters.

“Shh, don’t –” Steve cuts himself off abruptly.

“What?”

“We said we wouldn’t –”

“Well, it’s a little late now.”

None of this conversation makes any sense. “You’re not making sense,” Bucky mumbles. The two of them are exchanging meaningful and sort of angry looks, but he’s too exhausted and fuzzy to read what the meaning is or what they’re angry about.

“Steve, it’s –” Sam starts, but Steve cuts him off, turning to Bucky.

“What’d you tell ’em?”

_Jesus_. Sometimes he forgets how brutal Steve can be. “Nothing.” Steve’s looking at him. It’s not exactly accusing but it’s not – “Fuck you, Steve. I said _nothing_ , ok?”

“So we don’t have a problem,” Sam says to Steve.

“We have a fucking –” Steve gets up and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Sam lets out a long, slow breath and rummages in the first aid kit, pulling out antiseptic wipes, ointment, bandages. They sit in tired, tense silence as Sam tends to the cuts on Bucky’s head, the raw skin around his wrist.

“Ok,” Sam says eventually. “You should sleep. You want me to help you upstairs?”

“C’n I sleep here?”

“Sure.” Sam grabs a blanket from the nearby armchair.

“Whassup with Steve?”

“He’s just worried about you. You know him. He’s an asshole when he’s worried.”

Bucky has a vague feeling like there’s more to it than that, but he can’t fight the exhaustion any more. He closes his eyes, lets Sam help him lie down on the couch and put a blanket over him. Lets himself fall into sleep. The last thing he’s aware of is Sam’s hand, very gently stroking his hair.

 

~~~

 

He sleeps for hours, occasionally half-waking. Voices, over his head. Mostly quiet, but he thinks sometimes arguing, unless that’s a bad dream. Steve, sitting on the edge of the couch, holding Bucky’s hand so tight it hurts, not looking at him, talking low and intense into his phone. Nat, stroking his hair back off his forehead, putting a cool damp washcloth over his eyes, murmuring words that feel familiar, feel like childhood, _v’yishlah lo bimhera refuah shleimah, refuat hanefesh v’refuat haguf_ and he wants to laugh, to remind her, come on, Nat, you don’t believe in that stuff anymore. Sam is there, with bandages and sharp-smelling antiseptic, doing something to his face and shoulder and wrist, it hurts – he tries to push the hurt away, push Sam’s hands away. _Sorry, sorry. Nearly done_ – and Sam’s arm is strong and comforting around his shoulders, Sam’s propping him up, encouraging him to drink something, warm sweet tea with the nasty bitter aftertaste of painkillers.

“Thought ’bout this,” Bucky murmurs.

“About what?”

“Chicken soup,” Bucky says, and falls back asleep.

At some point he wakes with enough strength to shuffle slowly to the bathroom. When he takes a piss, there’s blood in the toilet bowl. He thinks about going into the kitchen, getting more tea or maybe something simple to eat, but when he passes the kitchen door it’s firmly closed, the soft hum of voices coming from inside the room, and he can’t face talking to anyone, having anyone look at him. He drinks water from the bathroom tap and collapses back onto the couch, back into a sleep that drifts between unconscious depths and restless bad dreams.

When he wakes properly there’s daylight sneaking in between the curtains, and checking his phone confirms it – just past eleven in the morning. Monday, July third. He’s slept for nearly two days.

At some point someone plugged his phone in to charge, and left bottles of water and Gatorade on the table by the couch, and a bottle of Tylenol with codeine, and his meds, and a plate with a cheese sandwich, a protein bar and a banana. He eats as quickly as possible, wincing at the soreness in his mouth, and takes his medication with a couple painkillers for good measure.

Pretty much his entire body still hurts, but his mind feels clear and wide awake. Clear and awake and fucking _angry_. With the cops, sure, but also with Steve and Nat and everyone else who’s been keeping him in the dark. Because something’s going on, he knows it. The cops were desperate – he’d felt it, under his pain and humiliation and fear. It was all very well for them to drop Sam’s name, for Pierce to make his threats about terrorism and the NDAA, but if they actually had any evidence, they would have found something to charge him with beyond graffiti and resisting fucking arrest. They would have actually been able to keep him locked up.

If they had any real evidence, they wouldn’t have needed to spend hours beating him, giving him grounds to sue them, to cause a media shitstorm – it was a crazy risk. A stupid risk. They must have been sure it would pay off, sure he would crack, sure that whatever he would tell them would be big enough to make the risk worth it. Well, the joke was on them. Whatever was about to go down, no one had trusted Bucky enough to tell him about it.

And then there was Sam and Steve’s weird argument the previous day, Steve losing his temper in the way he always does when he feels cornered, Sam’s comment when Bucky made that dumb joke about the Gestapo. _Truer than you know_...

The kitchen door is open. Everyone’s gathered around the table, laptops and pencils and paper spread across it. It’s a relatively small group, this kitchen’s seen much bigger meetings. Sam, Steve, Natasha, and the college kids with their laptops – Tony, Pepper, Rhodes. Something’s starting to fall into place in Bucky’s tired brain, but he can’t quite pin it down yet. Something about these people – this combination of people – this is a specific crew, who he’s seen together at particular times – times when the kitchen door was closed, displaying a note saying _no phones_. Times when people were having deliberately vague conversations, about names and group affiliations and intel, before Steve found an excuse to hustle him out of the room.

Several of them are talking at once, and nobody notices when Bucky steps into the kitchen doorway.

“I want to know what’s going on,” Bucky says loudly, and feels a mean sort of satisfaction when everyone around the table startles. There’s a long silence.

Tony breaks it, standing up with an exaggerated stretch. “Welllll, this feels like it’s about to get extremely awkward, maybe I’ll just –”

“Sit down,” Bucky snaps, and is surprised when Tony obeys, dropping back into his seat with a nervous look. Bucky comes into the kitchen, shuts the door firmly behind him, leans back against it. “You guys have been keeping something from me since I got here. It’s got something to do with this thing on the Fourth –” and he suddenly thinks, _wait, it’s Monday. Is the Fourth tomorrow_? “And that guy Pierce, and the cops, and what – what happened the other night,” for a second he can _feel_ the handcuff biting into his wrist, Rumlow’s hand gripping his hair; but he shakes it off, looks around the table, forces himself to make eye contact with everyone in turn. Sam looks concerned, Nat wary. Steve looks right back at him, that’s where the fight will be, if it happens.

“The cops know you’re up to something,” Bucky says. “They said Sam’s name, they wanted – they asked me all these questions, about organizing and anti-fascism and who I’ve been hanging out with in DC, they think something really big is gonna happen and they, they thought they could beat it out of me,” his voice is shaking but he won’t let himself stop, “they were talking about _domestic terrorism_ , and I didn’t – I don’t even – what the fuck have you guys been doing?”

“Bucky, maybe you should –”

“Steve, come on,” Sam says. “I get why you didn’t want him involved, but he’s caught up in it now whether you like it or not –”

“Caught up in _what_ ,” Bucky says.

“Everyone in this room right now,” Nat says, “is working on direct action against the alt-right rally. We’ve invited hundreds of people from other antifa groups to come to DC by tomorrow. Some of us have been infiltrating and hacking websites used by neo-Nazi groups. The research we’ve been doing shows that there are a large number of DC police officers who are members of those groups or sympathetic to –”

“So when I made some dumb comment about the Gestapo, and Sam said – and Steve freaked out,” Bucky almost wants to laugh, “that guy Rumlow’s a Nazi? Is that what you’re telling me? _Pierce_ is a fucking Nazi?”

“Buck –” Steve starts, but Natasha cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

“We’re not sure about Pierce yet. Rumlow is,” she says, and Bucky’s spiralling, what the fuck, he can’t _think_. Was he in even more danger than he realized? Is he lucky to be alive right now?

“The fact that Pierce was there...” Rhodey says.

“But – why were they questioning _me_? What do they know? Are they watching you guys?”

“I don’t know,” Nat says. She looks worried. “We didn’t think they had any idea, we’ve been as careful as possible. Our online security is good –”

“ _Good_ , it’s _perfect_ –”

“– and everyone in this room vouched for each other,” Nat finishes, with a glare at Tony.

“Ok,” Bucky says. “Fine. The police department’s full of Nazis, you guys are gonna like – Anonymous them or whatever, and when all their Nazi friends come to town – fuck, _tomorrow_ – you’ve got some crazy plan to go fight them in the streets and stop them from marching. Right?”

“Right,” Steve says.

“So I’ve just got one question,” Bucky says, and he can feel the anger boiling up again, all the rage and betrayal that his friends would let him end up in this situation, being beaten and threatened and hurt and keeping his mouth shut through all of it without even knowing who he was protecting and why, “why the _fuck_ did nobody tell me about this before?”

Silence around the table. Nobody wants to meet his eyes – except Steve, who’s still looking at him, jaw set, challenging, and Bucky thinks, ok then. _Here we fucking go_.

“I take it this was your dumbass decision, Rogers?”

“Yes,” Steve says.

“Am I allowed to ask _why_? Or are you gonna keep that a secret too?”

“I wanted to give you some time and space to be safe,” Steve says. Bucky can tell from the tone of his voice, from the way he’s sitting that he’s not gonna back down. This will be a justification, not an apology. “You deserved to rest and get better, Buck. So when we talked about you coming to stay I said we’re not telling you about this. Food Not Bombs and leafleting and, like, the big counter-protest tomorrow, fine. But not – not this stuff. Not the direct action and doxxing people. This stuff is _dangerous_ , Bucky. You needed to recover, not to get dragged into this kind of risky shit.”

“And you didn’t think of _talking_ to me about it?” Bucky snaps. “Letting me make my own decision about if I wanted to get involved? You couldn’t give me that?”

“No, because I know you, I didn't want you to say yes, because, if you felt obliged –”

“Oh my god, Steve! You always do this – you think you know best, like you can tell everyone what to do. Inside every anarchist is a frustrated fascist, and that’s –”

“ _Don’t_ call me a fucking fascist, what is _wrong_ with you,” Steve’s on his feet now, chair scraped back against the floor, hands on the table, indignant anger in every inch of him.

“Your ideal activist scene is a fucking dictatorship, an army battalion with you at the front giving orders like you’re –”

“– you’re not _listening_ to me, this shit is dangerous, I don’t want you to get –”

“– leading troops into battle, death and glory, and don’t talk to me about danger, you put me in danger! I got the shit beat out of me by fascist cops and I didn’t even know why! You dragged me into this and you didn’t even have the integrity to tell me what I was getting myself into!”

“ _Enough_.” Natasha’s hand slams down on the kitchen table. “You both need to stop this before you say something you’ll regret.”

“You know what I regret?” Bucky knows she’s right, but he can’t stop himself. He’s staring at Steve and Steve’s looking right back, furious, immovable. “I regret ever coming here. I regret accepting your _charity_.”

“So maybe you should get the fuck out of my house,” Steve says.

“ _Your_ house?” Sam says, and a look of shame flickers across Steve’s face for a moment, before he locks that down and switches back to anger.

“This is none of your business, Sam –”

“Sit down, Rogers,” Sam doesn’t raise his voice, but the anger is clear and cold, “don’t take that tone with me.”

“I’m not taking –”

“ _Stop_ ,” it comes out so loud it hurts Bucky’s throat, so loud he momentarily shocks himself. For a long moment the kitchen is silent and still, and suddenly it’s too much, he can’t take it any longer, the tension, the dishonesty, betrayal, Steve’s self-righteous bullshit. “Fuck this,” he mutters, turns, shrugs off the hand on his arm, ignores the raised voices, slams the kitchen door behind him. Boots, jacket, keys, phone and he’s out of the house before he’s even really thought about it, onto the street and walking as fast as he can, going anywhere but here.


	10. July 3rd, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: references (not graphic) to the Holocaust, and to American fascist and neo-Nazi organisations.

He walks for a long while in a weird daze, distracted by exhaustion and anger. Past the 7-11 and the thrift store, the falafel place and the church, the homeless couple who play the steel drums on the corner of the park, the Hebrew Israelite preachers outside the metro station. He walks right out of the neighborhood, down past Union Station, through the green grass and white stone of the Mall, hot and packed out with tourists.

He slumps down on some low steps in front of a big building, all red brick and white stone slabs. There’s some weird black sculptures, crowds of school kids and tourists, the giant dick of the Washington Monument rearing up in the distance. God, he’s so tired. He must look like shit. There are people everywhere, he can’t fucking relax. There’s a cop car across the street, maybe it’s Rumlow, maybe they’ve followed him, maybe they’re regretting letting him out alive so they’re back to finish him off. His eyes are prickling with tears and he rubs his hand over his face, shudders.

“It’s so sad, right?”

He looks up. There’s a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, standing on the steps. When Bucky doesn’t reply she smiles awkwardly, shuffles her feet, like maybe she’s now regretting trying to start a conversation with the bruised up amputee crying in public.

“What? Sorry?”

“Me and my friends all cried, so much. The bit with all the shoes, that was the worst,” she says, gesturing to the big red brick building behind them. Bucky’s so dazed it still takes a minute to click, then he sees the banners advertising the exhibits and suddenly the weird metal sculptures look familiar and it’s – for one awful moment he almost laughs. What sort of subconscious bullshit or messed up twist of fate has brought him to the fucking Holocaust Museum.

“Girls! Time to get back on the bus!” There’s a teacher trying to herd the middle school kids onto a coach. The girl next to Bucky gives him another awkward teenage smile and a little wave, then jogs down the steps and over to her friends.

Bucky had come here on a field trip too. A bit older than these kids though, junior or senior year of high school. Old enough to be thinking about college applications, but not really taking them seriously yet. Him, Steve, Nat, the other nine or ten kids in their AP History class. They’d spent a whole long weekend in DC, sleeping in a backpacker hostel, spending the days schlepping around the museums and monuments, sitting in on a history lecture at Georgetown on the Friday.

Saturday night, the three of them had snuck out of the hostel and gone gay bar hopping around DuPont Circle, talking their way into clubs with a combination of fake IDs and charm, ending up at some students’ house party. They’d stayed out all night and turned up for Sunday morning’s visit to the Holocaust Museum nearly an hour late, hungover and sweaty, Steve wearing someone else’s t-shirt, Bucky and Nat squabbling over a pair of sunglasses one of them had acquired from one of the people they’d made out with at some point during the night. Their history teacher had been pretty pissed.

At the time, it had felt like they were just having a crazy little adventure – underage drinking on a field trip! Pretending to be cool and grown up, trying to be what they imagined college students to be. But looking back, Bucky wonders if it wasn’t actually all about the Holocaust Museum all along. A rebellion, a refusal to engage. You can make us confront that history, but we’ll do it on our own terms, in our own time. An assertion of survival, of freedom – two queer Jews and a queer chronically ill baby communist, alive and thriving and throwing themselves headfirst into all the pleasures and liberties the twenty-first century could offer.

The museum was intense. Even Bucky and Natasha – and Arnie, the other Jewish kid in the group – who’d known most of the details since childhood, walked through the exhibits in shocked silence, holding back tears, standing close as if to silently reassure each other they were still alive. Seven years later, Bucky can still picture pretty much every part of the huge museum, including, yeah, the bit with the shoes.

Nat stood for ages in front of a display about women partisans and resistance fighters. _I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo_ , she said absently, eyes fixed on the black and white photos, and sure enough she’d turned up to school a few weeks later with _blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame_ in black ink on her right arm. Various adults had thrown fits, but what could they do?

He remembers the journey back up to New York, that Sunday night, a bunch of worn out kids piled into the school minibus, Steve fast asleep and snoring on Bucky’s shoulder. Natasha and Arnie in the seats directly in front of them, having some quietly intense conversation, Nat turning to look back at Bucky, reaching over the back of her seat, holding out her hand.

And he suddenly realizes there are tears pouring down his face, but he’s not even sure what he’s crying for – the dead? The survivors? His grandparents, his childhood rabbi, Natasha’s family, all the generations passing on trauma and grief and guilt? His own stupid small trauma and grief and guilt and _anger_ , his old carefree whole-bodied life that he’ll never get back? Time passes, and the world should be becoming a better place, safer and fairer and more just; but it’s twenty-fucking-seventeen and he’s crying outside the goddamn Holocaust Museum because his head hurts from getting slammed into a table and his left shoulder hurts because it pretty much always hurts and apparently DC law enforcement has been infiltrated by neo-Nazis and his friends are getting ready to put themselves on the line fighting fascism and all he wants to do is find a small, dark, quiet space to curl up and be safe.

After a while the tears start to dry up, and it occurs to him that he hasn’t looked at his phone since leaving the house. He fishes it out of his jacket pocket to find ten messages from Steve – which he doesn’t read – and one from Nat.

_so steves fuckin dumb & we’re all assholes for going along with it. but we love u. think abt letting steve know where u are? hes sorry & he’s freaking out._

_ok_ , he texts back. _love you too_. Bringing up his last message from Steve, he taps out a reply. _meet me at the WWII memorial. x_

 

~~~

 

The sun’s breaking out from behind the clouds by the time he gets to the Memorial. It’s hot as hell and for a moment he’s tempted to take off his boots and socks and dangle his feet in the fountain. He settles for sitting down cross-legged by the water and occasionally dipping his hand in.

He’s idly watching the tourists and families milling around, taking photos, leaving flowers, trying to keep their children under control, when a shadow falls across the concrete and Steve flops down beside him, breathing hard.

“Did you run from the station?”

Steve flaps a hand at him, too out of breath to speak. He’s got a backpack on his shoulders, a big one that looks at least half full, and for a moment Bucky’s stomach drops, is that his stuff? Is Steve kicking him out? Maybe they’re all secretly wondering if he _did_ blab to the cops, wondering if he’s a liability, a risk to their work that needs to be removed – he shakes his head, trying to cut through his own paranoid bullshit. Steve’s been an overbearing asshole about this, but he wouldn’t go that far.

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky says. “Would serve you right if you had an asthma attack.” Steve nods. “You’re also an idiot for lying to me.”

“Trying. Keep you safe,” Steve says.

“Worked out great.”

“Look –” Steve stops himself with what looks like a physical effort, resting his head in his hands while he takes a few long, slow breaths. He runs his fingers through his hair, glances anxiously at Bucky, looks away across the water. “Look. It’s my fault, ok? I was the one who couldn’t ever shut up about politics. I took you to Zuccotti Park, I got you arrested for the first time. I dragged you along on that May Day demo and I didn’t even think – and I saw you – it’s my fault, that you got hurt. That you lost your arm. If I – you’d be ok. If I wasn’t always on some crusade. I try to make the world a better place, and I just get my best friend hurt.”

They sit in silence for a minute, not making eye contact, looking out at the fountain, the neatly cut grass, the Lincoln Memorial in the distance, sunshine bouncing off the white stone and the water, bright and shining. _Nothing bad could happen here_ , their surroundings seem to say. _Don’t look too closely. Everything is shiny and clean_.

“We were both fuckin’ stupid back then,” Bucky says. _Back then_. Barely more than a year ago, but it feels like a lifetime. “Dumb kids who didn’t know anything about the world, half the time I only went to protests to look cool and get laid, you thought you could single-handedly start a revolution by shouting loud enough outside a bank – shut up, you know it’s true. But it wasn’t – none of the bad stuff that happened to me was _your fault_. I wanted to be there. I cared, ok, I was trying to make the world better too. You think I only gave a shit about any of it because of _you_? Steve, that’s the most narcissistic bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

Steve, for once in his goddamn life, doesn’t seem to have anything to say. He’s just sitting there with his mouth slightly open.

“The thing is,” Bucky says, “I believe you. I know you wanna keep me safe. I get that you feel guilty about me getting hurt, even though it’s not your fault. But you’re not gonna change – let me finish –” as Steve sits up straighter, the indignant look already forming on his face – “you know I’m right. You’re never gonna stop trying to fix the world, and you don’t want me to get hurt, yeah, but you also don’t want me to stop fighting alongside you. Because it’s an obligation for you, and you can’t understand why it wouldn’t be an obligation for everyone else. Especially your friends, ’cause why would you waste your time being friends with people who don’t care about fighting injustice?”

Steve’s shut his mouth and is looking in deep concentration at his own toes. The back of his neck looks red. He always blushes when he’s really uncomfortable.

“You don’t want me to get hurt, and you want me to be safe and recover, sure. But you don’t want me to just sit at home recovering and doing nothing else. You don’t want me to stop fighting. You won’t respect me if I don’t fight.”

“Bucky, that’s not –”

“Isn’t it? Really? Steve, I leave you alone for a few months and you move to the center of American political power to start some, some kind of militant anti-Nazi fighting squad –”

“I moved here for art school,” Steve mutters.

“And then as soon as I could literally stand on my own two feet without falling over, you invite me to come live in your house, where every leftist in DC hangs out. Honestly, what the fuck did you think was gonna happen?”

“Well, when you say it like that it does sound kinda ridiculous,” Steve says, a hint of a smile edging onto his face.

“I _know_ you,” Bucky says.

“I love you too,” Steve says, and Bucky scoops up a handful of fountain water and dumps it on his head. They scuffle for a moment, Steve’s arm around Bucky’s neck, each threatening to push the other into the fountain.

“Honestly,” Bucky says, as they settle down, “I don’t know why you thought such a dumbass plan would even work.”

Steve’s resting his chin in his hands, looking down at his feet. “The thing is, Buck. I could tell you didn’t really want to know.” And that – that feels true, in a way that’s not quite comfortable. “We had meetings at the house. You coulda walked in at any time and asked to know what was up –”

“And you’d have told me the truth?”

“I wouldn’t have lied to your face,” and that feels true too, Steve’s never looked him in the eyes and lied, but then Steve’s always been good at finding justifications for keeping secrets or telling half-truths, in some ways he’s the most honest person Bucky’s ever known, in other ways he’s a filthy goddamn liar. “That’s how I justified it, I guess. I wasn’t technically lying to you, and if you’d asked I would’ve told you, but. As long as you didn’t pin me down, it was ok to keep… just not talking about it.”

“It wasn’t ok, Steve. I get what you’re saying, but it wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says quietly.

“Didn’t quite catch that, Rogers, say again?”

“ _Sorry_ , you asshole.”

“Nah, bit louder?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Steve says, beautifully loud and clear, and a tourist with several small children turns around to glare at them, and Bucky laughs out loud.

“That’s more like it.” He grins at the look on Steve’s face, indignant and loving and relieved all at once. “So, what’s with the backpack?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve says. “You wanna come to a sleepover?”

 

~~~

 

“We were planning this already,” Steve says, as they walk up across the Mall. “To have somewhere for people to stay, coming from out of town. Then you said the cops mentioned Sam, and he’s been arrested before, so we reckon they have our address on file. We thought they might raid the house –”

“They – is that likely?”

“We gotta assume they’ll do anything and everything to stop us, that’s how we keep ourselves safe,” Steve says. His voice is tight with anger – at the cops; at himself, maybe, still beating himself up for not managing to keep _Bucky_ safe. “And it’d be a smart move, to be honest. Arrest a few of the core local organizers, cut the head off the movement. We’d be in the cells tomorrow, not out in the streets causing trouble. We’d all be freaked out from the raid, it might put some people off doing anything like this in future. It’s hard to keep organizing after something traumatic like –” he cuts himself off, blushing. “Sorry. I didn’t mean. I’m not trying to tell you.”

“It’s ok,” Bucky says. “So where are we sleeping?”

“You remember the warehouse club near Shield? Where we went to the party back in May?”

“Sure.”

“Well, we know the owner,” Steve says, and there’s a slight smile on his face. “There should be… a few people staying.”

“Is this a…” Bucky finds himself glancing around, though clearly nobody is listening, “like, a security thing, or are you just being cryptic to be a dick?”

“It can’t be both?” Steve says, and they grin at each other. Steve shakes his head after a moment, hands in his pockets and shoulders tense as he walks. “I don’t know what you want to do tomorrow,” he says, after a minute’s silence. “It’s up to you, ok? You shouldn’t go back to the house, but, I’m not expecting you to come to the action. If you don’t feel able to.”

“Steve,” Bucky takes a deep breath. It feels like he’s about to step over a precipice, but he’s made this decision. Made it years ago, in a way. “I’m in, ok? I don’t know how much use I’ll be, but I’m in. Whatever you’re doing, I’m doing.”

“Ok,” Steve says, ducking his head, failing to hide a smile. “Good job, really, cos I brought your prosthetic and your black hoodie and a face mask and gloves, I wouldn’t want all that to go to waste.”

The front door of the warehouse is shut when they arrive, a sheet of paper pinned to it reading  _Closed July 3rd-5th. Normal opening hours resume Thursday 6th_. Steve doesn’t bother knocking, just pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a quick text. Within a minute the door swings open. Nat and Sam stand in the doorway.

“Have you guys sorted your shit out?” Natasha says coolly.

“Yeah,” Steve mutters. “Sorry. Sorry I shouted at you, Sam.”

Sam gives Steve a nod. “Come in, guys. We got work to do.”

The place is buzzing, full of people. There's a weird energy in the air, tense and upbeat, nervous and happy. Bucky recognizes some of the people milling around – from Shield, Food Not Bombs, the party at Steve’s house – but there are plenty more he’s never seen before. Any and all genders, races, hair colors. Mostly around his own age, though there are a good number of older people and a few who look like they can’t have graduated high school yet. The aesthetic tends towards punk, a lot of tattered black jeans, leather vests and combat boots. Slogan t-shirts and pins proclaiming people’s affiliations: Black Lives Matter, Redneck Revolt, Bash Back!, Anti-Racist Action, Black Rose, DSA, IWW, ABC.

People are greeting each other, hugging, arguing, flirting. Small groups huddle over phones and maps of DC, caught up in intent conversation, and Bucky thinks, and it almost makes him smile, _ok. So this is the scene the cops were so desperate to get info on._

A lot of people are looking at Bucky. At first he assumes it’s just the injuries – he knows he still looks a mess, face bruised as hell, bandages on his wrist. But as he follows Sam and Nat through the crowd, people he doesn’t even know are smiling at him, reaching out to shake his hand or gently pat him on the back.

“What the fuck, Steve,” Bucky mutters.

“They heard what happened,” Steve says. The pride in his voice is almost too much. “They know the cops had you for more’n a day, beat the shit outta you, and you kept your mouth shut. Everyone’s here safe because you didn’t talk. You’re a hero, Buck.”

“I didn’t _know_ anything to talk _about_ , you asshole.”

“Bullshit,” Steve says. “Yeah, maybe you don’t know exactly what’s gonna go down tomorrow, but you know most of the same people I know, you know who’s friends with who, who organizes meetings. You knew more than enough to get us all arrested and get this –” he gestures around the big warehouse space, at all the people clustered around – “whole operation shut down.”

They reach the back corner of the room, where there’s a door labelled _Employees Only_. Nat gives it a sharp tap before pushing it open, revealing a neat office, with a table in the middle of the room, and –

“Nice of you to join us,” Nick Fury says.

He’s still got one arm in a sling and visible bruises on his face, and there’s a walking stick propped against his chair, but he’s sitting upright at one end of the table, cool and self-possessed. Like a king surveying his court. Or, Bucky realises, like what he actually is: the organizer who’s been around long enough to know everyone and everything. The man who can request meetings with people like Pierce, in the hope that he has enough influence to stop a far-right rally before it starts. The man who owns the gym where Natasha and Sam train up anti-fascists in self-defense. The man who owns this building, as well, and offered it up as a safe sleeping space to all these people, even though just a few weeks ago he was targeted and nearly murdered by the police. Talk about _cutting the head off the movement_.

“Close your mouth, Barnes, flies’ll get in,” Misty says. She’s standing near Nick’s right shoulder, leaning casually against a filing cabinet like an off-duty bodyguard, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Phones,” says Tony goddamn Stark, popping up in front of Bucky and Steve, holding out an imperious hand, and they pass him their cell phones. Tony opens up a safe built into the wall, unlocking several layers of mesh and solid metal sheets to add their phones to the pile.

“What –”

“I made us a Faraday cage,” Tony says, slamming it shut with a flourish.

“Of course you did.”

“You’re not dealing with amateurs here, Barnes.”

“Let’s get started,” Misty says. “Is the website ready?”

“One moment… yep, here goes,” Rhodey says, tapping at one of the laptops on the table.

The flatscreen fixed to one wall blinks into life. A white background, with short lines of text, many accompanied by photographs. At first none of it means anything to Bucky, but then Pepper reaches for the laptop, starts scrolling down the page, and he sees a sickeningly familiar face, and the words _Sergeant Brock Rumlow, MPD_. Pepper clicks on a couple of links, making smaller windows pop up. There are more photographs, more text. Pictures of people in police uniforms, militia fatigues, even – Bucky blinks, not wanting to believe his eyes – long white robes and hoods. Under the photo of Rumlow, smirking and confident in his uniform: 

> Metro Police Department, 2004-present  
>  Subject of 6 internal investigations (excessive force, 2004; wrongful arrest, 2004; sexual harassment, 2005; assault, 2007; offensive language, 2008; excessive force, 2008)  
>  Member of the Ku Klux Klan  
>  Member of the Oath Keepers  
>  Suspected involvement in Vanguard America and Unite the Right

Beneath that, a space, and then a few more short lines of text, and Bucky reads _502 South Virginia Avenue_ before it hits him, “you’re – you’re publishing his home address?”

“Nazis don’t deserve privacy,” Steve says.

“How did you guys _get_ all this information,” Bucky asks. He looks at Pepper, Rhodes, Tony; they look so young. “The three of you did this?”

“We are legion,” Tony says, with a grin.

“And,” Pepper says, reaching over Tony’s arm to press a key on his laptop, “we are... live.”

“So the website’s up, how do we make sure people see it?” Misty says.

“Social media, first of all,” Pepper says. “We wrote a program to share random pages from the website on twitter at regular intervals. We’ve also got a press release that we’re sending to thirty different media outlets within the next hour.”

“And we’re going after the fascists directly,” Tony chimes in. “Hacking their websites, flooding their forums with spam and rumors. Coordinated DDOS attacks. We’re working on hacking their mailing lists so we can send some fake mail-outs, saying the rally’s been canceled or the meeting place changed.”

“Have we got anything on Pierce yet?” Steve says.

“Still working on that,” Rhodey says, looking frustrated. “I think you’re right, Steve, but if he is involved, he’s covering his tracks a lot better than most of these guys. We’ve got nothing concrete.”

“He was in the police station when Bucky got arrested. He came in personally to ask Bucky questions, he was with Rumlow and Rollins,” Steve says, and Bucky wants to sink into the floor. Will they want him to talk about that? Nick’s looking at him, thoughtful, and for a second Bucky thinks he’s going to ask, but he just gives a little nod, like he’s read all the information he needs on Bucky’s face, and won't make him give anything more.

“He’s the Chief of Police,” Nick says, turning to Steve. “Being in a precinct building and questioning a suspect isn’t evidence of any wrongdoing.”

“It’s corroborative,” Steve says.

“We still need something for it _to_ corroborate,” Nick says. He sighs. “Alexander Pierce has a spotless reputation. He’s probably gonna be the next Mayor of DC. I sat on community policing boards with him in the seventies. He’s been involved in anti-racist groups, liberals love him.”

“Even back then there were rumours, though,” Misty says. “Not that I personally remember, but I’ve heard people talk. Older cops. Older _black_ cops. Saying he’d play people against each other, come to you as a friend and then stab you in the back. He plays favorites, protects his own. Six investigations against Rumlow, and he’s still got a job? And nothing since oh-eight, even though we know for a fact he hasn’t changed? Someone high up’s behind that.”

“When did Pierce become Chief of Police?” Natasha asks.

“Two thousand nine,” Nick says, and Nat sits back in her chair, spreading out her hands, like _there you go_. “Look, I’m not trying to defend the guy. I’m saying, you want to prove he’s a fascist, you’re gonna have to do better than rumours of dirty policing and _he spoke to my friend who got arrested_.”

Steve slumps in his chair, looking mutinous. “Fine, but I want it on record that _I_ think he’s a fucking fascist and I’ve been saying so all along, and this just goes to show you can never trust a cop.”

“Noted, Rogers, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to be lectured by a white college kid who just decided he was a militant anti-fascist six months ago,” Nick says. Steve opens his mouth, very obviously thinks better, and shuts it again.

“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” Bucky says.

“Natasha?”

“We know they’re gathering somewhere in the city to march under police protection,” Nat says. “We don’t know where they’re meeting exactly, though we should know by late tonight or early tomorrow, it’ll go out on their mailing lists. We know they want to end their march with a rally, most likely at the White House.”

“We will not let that happen,” Nick says. “Whatever goes down tomorrow, we know the media will be there. Millions of people are going to watch this on TV. We cannot let them see Nazis rallying right out front of the White House.”

“Agreed,” Sam says. “Bad enough we got fascists inside it, we don’t need them having a party outside of it as well,” and Bucky can’t help smiling at the mix of disgust and humor in Sam’s voice, and Sam meets his eyes, and for a second there’s a little answering smile on his face too.

“So how are we gonna stop them?” Bucky asks. “If we don’t know for sure where they’re coming from?”

“We can make a pretty good guess,” Nat says.

“The official counter-protest is gonna be on the south side of the White House,” Misty says. “We’re expecting a good few thousand people, and we got permission from the police to gather on the Mall, but we’ve been told not to go north of Constitution Ave.”

“The cops will want to keep the fascists and the counter-protest apart, obviously,” Natasha says, “so we can assume the fascists will be north of the White House. It seems likely they’ll want to walk down Sixteenth Street and end up at Lafayette Square.”

“Any questions,” Nick says, looking around the table.

“Will they have guns?”

“God, I hope not,” Rhodey mutters, and a nervous laugh goes around the table.

“Do you mean the cops or the Nazis?”

“I thought the cops _were_ the Nazis, isn’t that the whole reason we’re here?”

“Can someone just answer Pepper’s question, and stop being comedians?”

“It’s illegal to carry at a protest or anywhere near the White House,” Sam says. “So they most probably won’t have guns. The police will have guns. The fascists will have other weapons, things they can get away with carrying.”

“So, people might get hurt,” Pepper says. Her voice is steady, but it sounds like it’s taking an effort to keep it that way.

“Yes.”

“A hell of a lot more people could get hurt if we don’t do this,” Steve says. “If they get their way, if they feel like they can hold their marches and rallies whenever they want, without people standing up to them. I know it’s frightening. I’m fucking scared. But we got a responsibility, to ourselves and to others. We don’t let fascists walk through our city. We stand up.”

“Steve. Do you plan these speeches in advance, or are they off the top of your head?” Sam asks, and there’s relieved laughter around the room again.


	11. July 3rd, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: discussion of PTSD/trauma, police brutality, domestic violence

Meeting adjourned, they split up. Pepper, Rhodey and Tony look like they’re settling in for a long night with their laptops and the coffee machine. Steve heads out to the bus station, to meet more comrades coming in from other cities – the address wasn’t given out by phone or email, for fear it would be read by the wrong person. Misty and Nick also leave, for another meeting at a friend’s house, last-minute coordination for the official counter-protest at the National Mall.

Nat and Sam are leading a self-defense session on one side of the main space, and Bucky follows them, for want of anything better to do.

The big room is more than half full, people stretching and pairing off, running through moves, in slow motion or so fast it’s hard to follow. There’s a tension in the air, none of the friendly, joking atmosphere that Bucky’s used to from Shield classes. People here might know and trust each other – at the very least, despite any interpersonal dramas and personality clashes, they’ll have each others’ backs against the real enemy – but it doesn’t feel like friendly sparring, for exercise or to blow off steam. It feels like a preparation for real violence.

Nat’s working with a group of young women on one side of the room, teaching them how to twist out, turn and punch if someone grabs them by the back of their hair, or in one girl’s case her hijab. “Use your elbow if you can’t spin around enough for a proper punch, or grab their wrist and dig your fingernails in as hard as you can. When you’re up against someone bigger and stronger than you, hurting them unexpectedly gives you an advantage.”

Sam’s moving through the room, easy and confident, assessing movements, pausing here and there to correct a stance or give someone an encouraging nod. He stops beside some guys who have a couple of plastic prop knives and toy guns, like the ones he’d brought to class that one time, before the party, before Fury was attacked, before everything went so crazy. Sam says something to the guys that makes them laugh. One of them tosses a prop knife to Sam and he catches it easily by the handle, spins it into the air and catches it again, flips it around his fingers, god, his _hands_ – gestures to the guy opposite him, smiling, _c’mon_. The guy swings his gun up, fast towards Sam’s face, but Sam’s faster, in a matter of seconds he’s slapped the guy’s arm to one side, knocked him to the ground and pinned him easily with one knee, got the gun out of his hand. It’s impressive and it’s horribly sexy and all of a sudden Bucky just can’t handle it, can’t be in the room for a minute more. All he’s doing today is running away from shit, but it’s too much.

He ends up out the back of the building, in the enclosed yard with its picnic tables and fire pit, where he’d dropped ecstasy with Steve’s friends, six weeks and a lifetime ago. Even out in the fresh air he can’t relax, anxiety crawling over his skin. What is he _doing_. He would barely have been good enough for this crew a couple years ago, when he still had all his limbs and some ok self-defense skills and the ability to charm his way out of virtually any situation that went south. What use is he now? How can he be trusted to be part of this? How can he defend himself, much less anybody else, tomorrow?

“What’s happening, Barnes.”

“What the fuck,” he spins around and almost falls as Nat comes outside, quietly closes the door behind her, “don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry at all. “You ok?”

“Yeah, I just – there’s a lot of people in there. I’m fine.”

She comes across the yard, stands right in front of him, so close they’re almost touching. Reaches up, hands gentle on each side of his face.

“Are we dancing?”

For a long moment she just looks at his face, quiet, assessing. Then she takes a step back, pulling her hair up into a loose bun, securing it with an elastic band from around her wrist, and says, “hit me.”

“I’m not gonna hit you,” Bucky says wearily.

“Yeah, you’re right, you’re probably not. _Try_ to hit me.”

“Nat, I – look. I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

“What do you do if you fall off a bike? You get straight back on, you don’t let the fear build up.”

“I didn’t fall off a bike, Nat.”

“No, but –”

“How would self-defense have helped me? I was locked in a room, handcuffed to a fucking table, three cops, you think I should’ve, what? Tried out some kickboxing on them? What d’you think they would’ve done to me then?”

“I don’t think you should’ve fought back then. I think you need to fight _now_.”

Bucky can’t listen to this. It’s too much, she needs to stop. “Is this what you and Steve do instead of therapy? People are violent to you, you feel scared, so you go beat the shit outta your friends? I’m sick of violence, Nat. I don’t want to live like this.”

“That’s not an option,” she shouts, about as mad as he’s ever seen her. “Violence is gonna happen whether you want it or not, people are always gonna want to hurt you. You can bury your head in the sand and say, oh I don’t like violence so I’ll pretend it doesn’t exist, or you can prepare yourself for it, you can get stronger, you can take some power back.”

“If the only way I can feel powerful is by hurting people, I don’t – I don’t want –” he can’t look at Nat’s face anymore, it’s too much, the anger and the fear; he turns his back on her, and covers his eyes with his hand for good measure, ridiculously.

Footsteps come padding across the floor and then she’s right behind him, her arms coming around his waist in a hug, the warmth of her pressed against his back.

“Don’t make me, Nat, please. I’ll be there tomorrow, I’ll stand with you guys, I’ll punch as many fuckin’ Nazis as I can, just, don’t make me do this right now.”

“Ok, it’s ok,” her voice is soft, calming, “I’m sorry. I misjudged – I fucked up. I guess I can be...” she trails off, like she’s not sure what to say.

“You can be a harsh fuckin’ bastard, Romanov.” He turns around in her embrace, slings his arm around her neck, trying to hide the wince as pain shoots across his upper back and shoulders. “But I love you anyway.”

 

~~~

 

By the time they go back inside, the self-defense training is over, and people are setting out food on trestle tables, others queuing up to get fed. There are big pots of curry and rice, platters of sandwiches and tacos, and a cardboard box full of slightly bruised fruit that definitely looks like a Whole Foods dumpster haul. Bucky queues and serves himself and sits and eats almost mechanically, avoiding people’s eyes, trying to project an air of _fuck off_ so nobody comes over and starts talking to him. Maybe Natasha picks up on that, because she sits down directly in front of him, her back to the rest of the room, her body language even more uninviting than his, and keeps up a quiet steady stream of nonsensical bullshit, stories that are probably at least half made up, shamelessly talking with her mouth full.

After they’ve eaten they dump the disposable plates, help clear up and pack away the leftover food. Bucky’s trying to tie a trash bag closed, fumbling it, when a gentle hand settles between his shoulder blades. He startles badly, dropping the bag, spinning around and almost losing his balance.

“Sorry,” Sam says, raising his hands, taking a step back.

“It’s ok.” They look at each other, look away in mutual awkwardness.

“I thought you might wanna take a break from the crowds,” Sam says, finally. “You been up on the roof yet?”

Bucky follows him. Back through the corner office, through another door on the other side of that room, up a short flight of stairs, through a storage room packed with old sound systems and filing cabinets, up a ladder and out through a trapdoor, onto the wide flat roof. There’s a beat-up old leather couch, some plants in pots, a couple crates of empty beer bottles.

Sam strolls towards the edge of the roof, but he doesn’t stop where Bucky or any sensible person would, a foot or two from the drop; he goes right up to the edge, his toes are almost sticking out over it. It’s only a two-story building but that’s high enough for serious injury, high enough to make Bucky feel uncomfortable just watching.

“What are we doing up here?”

“When I was a kid I had this thing about flying,” Sam says. “Always jumping off of things. Like one day it was gonna click. My hidden superpowers.”  
  
“Jumping off of what?”

“Down the stairs, off the kitchen table. Climbing frames. One time I made a parachute outta my bed sheets and nearly jumped out my bedroom window.”

“Don’t your parents live in an apartment?”

“Eighth floor,” Sam says, looking back over his shoulder, smiling at the appalled look on Bucky’s face. “Yeah, I didn’t have the greatest understanding of how parachutes work. Good thing my sister had the sense to stop me.”

“You were fearless,” Bucky says.

“I was scared of all sorts of things,” he says, a wry little smile on his face. “Failing at school. Disappointing my parents. Never getting out of DC and seeing the world. People finding out I liked guys,” his voice gets quieter with each sentence, like even now it’s not easy to say it out loud, like part of him will always be scared. “But not heights.” He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking down at the street. For a moment he looks lost in thought, a thousand miles away.

Then he takes a couple steps back from the roof edge and turns back to Bucky. “So, listen, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I wanted to say I’m sorry for going along with Steve’s nonsense,” he says, and Bucky can’t help smiling. “I didn’t know you, and Steve knows you so well, I thought he’d be the best judge of what to tell you. But it wasn’t fair on you, and it did put you in danger. And I feel like – it’s not a great basis for a friendship, is it? If I’m keeping things from you. Lying by omission. So I’m sorry.”

The look on Sam’s face is so open and earnest, and standing there against the evening sky he’s so breathtakingly unfairly fucking beautiful. Bucky can’t help himself, he takes three quick steps forward across the roof and kisses him right on his open mouth.

Sam’s frozen for a moment, just long enough for Bucky’s internal monologue to start up a panicked stream of regretful swearing, but then his mouth opens a little further and his hands come up to cup Bucky’s head and it’s happening, Sam’s kissing him back. They stumble towards the old couch, hands starting to reach under each others’ shirts, and Sam makes a surprised little noise when the backs of his legs hit the edge of the couch and he sits down hard, causing the springs to let out a loud _twang_. They’re laughing against each other’s mouths as Bucky straddles Sam, grinds down onto his lap; they’re both struggling to get their shirts off, they’re wrapped around each other, hands everywhere, kissing frantically.

It’s different to their first hookup, when Bucky was nervous and high and mostly motivated by trying to please Sam; this time he’s sober, still nervous, but so turned on it’s like the nervousness has to take a back seat. Somewhere right in the very back of his mind he’s conscious of his injuries, his shoulders and back and head and wrist still sore and aching, but the pain is a distant signal, there’s no room for it in his head with all of the _oh god Sam fuck me please touch my dick_. And Sam might be some kind of mind reader, because he’s got his arms around Bucky’s waist and he’s rolling them over, so Bucky’s lying underneath him – not easy on a lumpy couch, but somehow they avoid tumbling onto the floor – and sitting up, and his hands are undoing Bucky’s belt, pulling down the zip on his jeans.

“This good? This what you want?”

“ _Please_ ,” and Sam’s pulling his jeans and boxers down, leaning over Bucky, kissing him again as his hand closes around Bucky’s cock, warm and strong and confident and Bucky’s mouth is open and he’s panting, almost moaning, embarrassingly loud and eager.

“Shh,” and he can hear the laugh in Sam’s quiet voice, “every communist on the East coast is right downstairs.” Then Sam’s shifting up onto his knees, freeing up his left hand. He catches hold of Bucky’s chin and their eyes meet for a second, Sam’s eyebrows going up in a quick silent question – ok? – as he places his hand firmly over Bucky’s mouth and, Jesus Christ, Bucky’s whole body shakes, lighting up from head to toes. He wants to nod his head frantically, wants to yell _yes, yes_. He can’t yell, with Sam’s hand covering his mouth. He can’t move his head, with Sam holding him still against the couch, or, well, he could move, Sam’s strong but he’s not that strong. He doesn’t want to move. He settles for making a little whimpering sound and keeping his eyes fixed on Sam’s face, trying to communicate wordlessly that everything Sam is doing is very great yes please carry on.

“Ok,” Sam says, “ok, I know what you want.” He stops jerking Bucky off and Bucky makes an indignant noise, muffled, because that’s not what he wants _at all_. “Yeah, yeah. Gimme a minute,” and Sam’s unzipping his own jeans, pulling his cock out, giving himself a quick stroke that makes him shudder a little, mouth dropping open.

“Mm _mmm_ ,” Bucky says meaningfully, trying to thrust his hips upwards, and Sam grins down at him.

“God, you’re impatient. You gonna keep still, or am I gonna hold you down?” He lifts his hand off Bucky’s mouth and Bucky gasps in a full breath, the night air cool and delicious in his lungs.

“You can – you can hold me down,” he says, trying to keep his voice low.

“Oh, can I?”

“I mean, if you want,” Bucky shrugs, playing it up, and Sam stifles a laugh; then reaches up. His hand skims gently up Bucky’s arm, skipping over his bandaged wrist to take hold of his hand, pressing it down onto the couch above his head, their fingers tangled together. He lowers himself carefully, stretches out, nudging Bucky’s legs apart with his knee so he can settle on top, holding Bucky down with his whole body. It feels so good, so _safe_ , Sam’s weight pinning him down, he doesn’t have to _do_ anything, he’s helpless, he can just sink into it – and it’s a strange and perfect relief, after the last few days he’s had, that being restrained can still feel so good.

Sam’s grinding up against Bucky’s hip, jacking each of them off in turn, agonisingly slow. Kissing Bucky’s neck, letting go of his hand to pull his hair, resting a hand teasingly gently on his throat. Murmuring nonsense, sweet and dirty; _you’re so cute, I can’t wait to get you back in a real bed sometime, I wanna be inside you, would you like that? Next time we do this can I pin you down and fuck you?_ And it’s so good Bucky can hardly breathe, can’t find words, so he just reaches out, running his hand across Sam’s arm and shoulders and back, grabbing on hard to Sam’s bicep, hanging on for the ride, and when he comes he tips his head back and sees the sky above them and thinks, _oh, neat. Stars_.

 

~~~

 

“How did you know that I like that kinda stuff?”

“What kinda stuff?”

They’re lying close together on the couch. Both shirtless, a little sticky, Bucky’s pulled his jeans back up but not bothered with the zip.

“You know,” Bucky’s so _bad_ at this, god, it’s almost funny, “when you put your hand over my mouth and held me down and stuff,” he finishes in an embarrassed rush.

“Oh, well, I’m very perceptive,” Sam says, biting his lip to hide a smile, “I just took one look at you and –”

“Ugh, _stop_.”

“No, I swear, it’s my superpower. On the mean streets of Washington DC they call him… _Sexually Perceptive Man_ ,” Sam’s honestly _giggling_ now, “he can leap tall buildings in a single bound and work out what his partners are into when they give him really subtle clues, like getting down on their knees and telling him to pull their hair.”

“I hate you,” Bucky says, trying to bury his face in the couch cushions, so he doesn’t have to look at how gorgeous Sam is when he’s making fun of him. Sam’s still laughing, but he also reaches over and starts running his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

“I’m into it too, you know,” Sam says.

“Yeah?”

“What, you thought I was doing you a favor?” His hand slides down to the back of Bucky’s neck, grips hard, and Bucky shivers, smiling into the cushions, delighted. “I was worried though, after that night. After the party,” Sam says, a little hesitant, stroking down Bucky’s back, gentle again.

“About what?”

“I thought I might’ve fucked up. Done something you didn’t like, or, taken advantage, I guess. Or maybe it was just an ecstasy thing; for you, I mean, and you didn’t want it to happen again.”

“Sam –” Bucky has to turn and look at him, because that’s just crazy. “It wasn’t just an ecstasy thing, ok? I like you. And you didn’t do anything wrong, I told you at the time.”

“And then you barely spoke to me, after.”

“I guess I...” ugh, talking about feelings is the worst. “When you said you didn’t want me to sleep in your room, I guess I thought you’d changed your mind, or like, you were trying to tell me it was just a hookup and you weren’t interested in… anything. Again. With me.”

“That’s… Yeah. I can see how you’d think that,” Sam says. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. I didn’t mean to make you feel rejected. It’s,” he pauses, thinking, chewing his lower lip. “Listen, can I tell you something? It’s not the whole story. And it’s fucked up, but it might help you understand why I acted like an asshole and kicked you out of my room.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“So, it’s like,” Sam starts to say, then stops. “I - ok, come here,” he says, and his hands are on Bucky’s shoulders, turning him onto his side, so he’s facing away from Sam.

“Of course you want to be the big spoon,” Bucky says, because that seems easier than _yeah, I don’t like to look at people’s faces when I talk about the really difficult stuff, either._

“I’m a versatile spoon,” Sam says, rubbing his nose against the back of Bucky’s neck, “now shut up so I can tell you about my weird damage, ok?”

“Shutting up,” Bucky says, and there’s a long silence.

“Ok, so. Twenty twelve, about six months after I got home, I was seeing this guy. Living with him. I think I knew, deep down, I wasn’t in any state to be in a serious relationship, but it wasn’t like I could afford my own place, and my sister just had her daughter and moved back in with my parents, so. I moved into his place.”

Bucky stays quiet, listening.

“It was a tiny apartment, just a studio. Felt claustrophobic as hell, but I told myself I’d lived in smaller spaces with worse roommates in theater, so what did I have to complain about? Plenty of veterans end up on the street, not living rent-free in an apartment with a nice boyfriend.” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “Shit. I’ve gone over this in therapy and it’s still hard to talk about. Ok. So we’re sharing the apartment, sharing one tiny bathroom, sharing a bed. And one night I… I had a nightmare. I had them a lot back then, but this one was bad. One of the worst. I half woke up, thought someone was trying to kill me. I attacked my boyfriend. Knocked him to the floor and punched him before I realized what I was doing. The neighbors called the cops. He… he wouldn’t let them arrest me. Said it was a misunderstanding, said he didn’t want to press charges. Then as soon as they left, he turns to me and goes, pack your shit. Get out of my apartment. I don’t want to see you again.”

Sam’s voice trails off. Bucky’s looking out across the roof, at the sky and the dark windows in the buildings opposite, but in his mind’s eye he can see himself. A year ago, maybe, or a little more; soon after getting home from the hospital.

He can picture his own face, tear-stained, twisted with rage, screaming; _get out, fuck off, I hate you, stop trying to help me._ Slamming the bedroom door in Dad’s face. Pushing past Mom when she tried to hug him, no thought in his head but the desperation to get away, to not be touched. Not raising his hand to her, not exactly, but knocking into her hard with his good shoulder, using his height and weight like a weapon. Not apologising, not looking back, not acknowledging the gasp of shock or the tears. She fell against the kitchen counter, hit her head and sprained her wrist, it was bandaged for a week and he couldn’t bear to look at her.

 _The world hurts us_ , he thinks, _and we just turn around and pass the hurt right on to the people we love, we don’t even mean to._ And it’s not a one time thing, the hurts keep coming, the threats don’t go away. So we learn martial arts, we think about buying guns, we talk about punching Nazis like it’s hitting the high score on a video game. And Bucky’s not walking away from this fight, but how much longer will they have to keep fighting for? How much more damaged will they get in the process?

“I’m sorry that happened. To both of you.”

“Thanks,” Sam says, very quietly. “So, you see,” and his arm that’s wrapped around Bucky’s waist twitches in a shrug, “I got some issues about sharing beds. I should’ve explained all that to you at the time, but. I was being selfish, didn’t want to scare you off, I guess. I thought if I said _oh by the way, one time I attacked a boyfriend in his sleep_ , you wouldn’t want to sleep with me again.”

“I wanna sleep with you again,” Bucky says, and Sam nuzzles against his neck again, making him shiver. “Did you. Do you – nah,” Bucky cuts himself off, “never mind. Not my business. Sorry.”

“Go on, ask. It’s ok.”

“Do you have… is it PTSD? From, from being in the Air Force?”

Sam’s quiet for a long while. Bucky wriggles around til he’s lying on his back, gets his head comfortably pillowed on Sam’s arm.

“You know… a lot of times, that’s what people assume. I guess it’s better than it used to be, now people know that shit exists. But it’s… it’s not _inevitable_. Some people spend decades in the military and don’t meet the criteria for PTSD. Plenty of people get it who’ve never been to war.”

“Do you. Do you think I.” Bucky gestures vaguely, which is preferable to trying to put this stuff into words. Sam gives him a wry look, like he knows exactly what Bucky’s trying to say and isn’t super impressed.

“I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone, and I’m not gonna go around diagnosing my friends. I dunno, man. Do _you_ think you got PTSD?”

“I looked it up,” Bucky says. “It was… Some of it fits. Feeling depressed, not wanting to think about the future. Mood swings, feeling tired but trouble sleeping. Nightmares, like, not all the time, but it feels like I get them more often than I used to. And they’re about the – the thing. I mean they’re not always exactly about it but they _are_ , you know?”

“After I got back,” Sam says, “I kept having dreams where – I was over there, but the war wasn’t – I was just walking around. On base, in some little town, just walking down a road. One time I was in a helicopter – and I’d just suddenly realize it was silent. I mean _silent_. Like, real life is never that quiet. And then in the dream – after I noticed the silence, I’d start looking around, trying to work out why it was so quiet, and it’d be because there was no one else around. None of my guys, no insurgents or civilians, no one flying the helo I was sitting in the back of. Everyone was gone. Like the whole world had disappeared, and it was just me, alone, in an empty country I’d helped to invade and fuck up.”

“I get nightmares about my teeth and hair all falling out. I mean, what the fuck is that? I lost an arm in real life, but in nightmares I’m worried about losing my _hair_? And then a couple times I had this really fucked up one where I was, like, cutting people’s fingers off with a butcher knife and I –” he stops abruptly, looking at Sam’s face for signs of disgust, but he’s just nodding, calm, like the worst bits of Bucky’s subconscious make perfect sense.

“Losing parts of yourself. And feeling like it was your fault. And then there’s part of you that hates everyone else for being whole, wants them to lose shit as well.”

“Fuuuck,” Bucky exhales, his hand coming up almost involuntarily to cover his face. This is the shit that drove him away from therapy, the way someone can make him feel splayed open and exposed with words. It’s a little easier to take from a friend – lover? Partner? Boyfriend, maybe? – than from a therapist, but not by much.

“Sorry. Said I wasn’t gonna diagnose you and then I go and head shrink you.” Sam takes Bucky’s hand, pulls it gently away from his face, kisses his palm. It’s unexpected, a weirdly romantic gesture for the middle of a conversation about trauma nightmares. He’s not complaining, it makes him feel warm all over.

“Yours is about… it’s about being alone. What else?”

“Losing people. Or not saving people, leaving people behind. Failing to do the right thing. Guilt.”

They lie in silence for a while, just breathing together.

“How you feeling about tomorrow?”

“I don’t even know,” Bucky says. “It feels like… like the last couple days are a blur. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t tell if – it’s like I can’t tell how much getting arrested fucked me up. Or how much it’s gonna fuck me up if I let myself stop and think about it. I –” it’s so hard to talk about, he wants to cringe into himself, hide. “I’m fucking scared, Sam. I don’t wanna get arrested again. I thought… I thought, Rumlow might actually kill me if he thought he could get away with it. I’ve never felt that scared of a cop before.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, but from how Bucky’s lying, with his head on Sam’s shoulder and his face close to Sam’s neck, he can feel it when he tenses very slightly, when his fingers momentarily stop lazily playing with Bucky’s hair. “Sorry. Is that – is that a dumb thing to say?”

“It’s your truth,” Sam says slowly. “You don’t gotta apologize for living a life where you made it to twenty-four years old before being scared a cop was gonna kill you.”

“I mean, I know they probably were never gonna kill me. Misty said –” he can hear her voice now, gentle but with an edge to it, that he hadn’t really thought about at the time. _Nice disabled white kid. He’s ok. He’s alive_. “I know it could’ve been worse, I – fuck, Sam. I’m just gonna stop talking.” He risks a quick glance up at Sam’s face and gets a smile in response, a soft kiss on his forehead.

“Can I ask a question? About when you lost your arm?”

“Sure.”

“You weren’t scared the cops would kill you back then?”

“No, it,” Bucky stops for a moment to think about it. Had he been scared? He remembers seeing the cops in their riot gear, heavily armed. Blocking the street, surrounding them, threatening, aggressive. He remembers feeling surprised, and pissed, and worried about Steve. Then there’s nothing, a blank space. He remembers being scared he’d die, but that was later, in the hospital. He doesn’t remember being scared like he was – like Rumlow scared him. Rumlow and Pierce. “Honestly, it happened too fast. I don’t remember having time to get scared.”

Sam’s looking down at him, thoughtful. A little frown line between his eyebrows, mouth closed, like he’s considering what to say.

“You know you don't have to come with us tomorrow,” he says, eventually. “You could go to the big counter-protest with Nick. You could stay here.”

“Stay here and what,” Bucky says. “Roll bandages? Make sandwiches for the baby hackers?”

“I know Steve thinks you gotta be on the front lines, literally punching Nazis or you’re not doing the real work, but you know that’s not true, right? There’s no shame in standing further back.”

“Where are you gonna be standing?”

“I –” Sam gives him a little smile, rueful. “I do the same shit Steve does. Just a little more sensible.”

“Are you scared?” Bucky asks. “About tomorrow?”

“Shit, of course,” he says. “I don’t want to get arrested again either. It was bad enough before I knew how many cops in this town are in the goddamn KKK.” He’s trying to make it sound like a joke, but there’s tension in his voice. Fear. “I don’t wanna wind up in jail. I don’t wanna get shot.”

There’s another long, quiet moment.

“When I was a kid, my father made me promise I’d never end up dead or in jail fighting for a cause,” Sam says. “And I don’t – fighting fascists isn’t my idea of fun. But Nick’s right – Steve’s right, though don’t tell him I said so – we can’t let them have the streets. We’ve done the letter writing campaigns and talking to our Senators. We’re fighting them on the internet and in the press. Nick tried diplomacy, and look where that got him. There’s a point where the only thing left to do is fight them face to face.”

“So, I’m gonna fight next to you,” Bucky says, and Sam leans down and kisses him hard, gets one hand back in Bucky’s hair and pulls him in close.

They separate after a few minutes, breathing a little harder, smiling at each other.

“We should sleep,” Sam says, reluctantly.

“Up here?”

“Probably not a good idea. There are mats and blankets downstairs, we should head back down.”

“Are you worried about having a nightmare?”

“It doesn’t just go away because I talked about it with you this one time,” Sam says, looking away.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Bucky says, poking him in the ribs, making him squirm, “I failed out of therapy.”

“You – that’s not how therapy works,” Sam says.

“Sure, but I distracted you from getting into a worry spiral about whether you’re gonna hit me in your sleep,” Bucky says, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. Sam smiles, comes in for a real kiss, before gently pulling away and getting up off the couch.

“Come on,” he says, holding out a hand, and Bucky knows they're only going back downstairs, but he thinks,  _when you look at me like that, I feel like I’d follow you anywhere._


	12. July 4th, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: Nazis, cops, brief threat of gun violence

They’re up early the next morning, restless and nervous. Bucky feels like he barely slept, eyes gritty with tiredness, stomach lurching, a tension headache already settling itself in for the long haul. He drinks a cup of really bad coffee and picks at some leftover bread and fruit, sitting next to Sam on a crash mat in one corner of the warehouse. Every so often their knees touch, or Sam’s hand rests for a moment on Bucky’s shoulder or lower back, and they look at each other, a strange mix of comfort and tension in the air between them.

People are milling around, eating, talking, getting dressed, lacing up their boots. On a table by the door there’s a pile of black bandannas, another pile of makeshift gas masks made from plastic bottles and surgical masks. Someone’s written the phone number for a sympathetic local law firm on a piece of paper on the wall and people are writing it on their arms and legs with permanent markers. It’s still early but people have already started leaving, in small groups, using the two exits on opposite sides of the building, heading for different routes into the center of the city.

When Bucky and Sam get outside the streets are busy and hot, people going to and from work or enjoying a day off for the Fourth. Sam looks cool and casual in black jeans and running shoes, sunglasses hooked onto the neck of his black t-shirt, backpack slung casually over one shoulder. Bucky had watched him pack it that morning: bottles of water and Maalox, first aid supplies, a hi-vis medic vest.

Bucky’s got his prosthetic strapped on under his black hoodie. Gloves and a scarf in his pockets. Hopefully with the hoodie, the black long-sleeved shirt under it, and the gloves, it won’t be immediately obvious that his left arm is metal and plastic rather than flesh. They’re quiet on the walk down to McPherson Square, close but not quite touching, wary, neither one of them making the move to hold hands.

Sometimes, those who’ve never done this kind of direct action assume that people do it because they enjoy it. Because they like confrontation, they enjoy the chance to commit acts of violence and destruction. There’s a grain of truth in it. Bucky’s met a few people, mostly other young white men, who seemed to be in the struggle primarily as an outlet for some unpleasant anger issues. Hell, Steve is a rage-fueled adrenaline junkie too, though at least he can mostly be trusted to have solid ethical reasoning behind it.

But it’s never been true for Bucky. If he’s being honest with himself, he hates this shit. Hates the uncertainty, the danger, the fear. Hates to remember how it didn’t used to scare him – how he used to be so careless, like the whole thing was a joke. Even when violence happened on demos, it never felt like a real threat to him. This was America, it was the twenty-first century, and he had that bullshit untouchable middle class white boy confidence, the confidence of a kid who’s never experienced real terror. But if that confidence was cracked a little by his first few arrests, shattered to pieces when he lost his arm, it’s been ground into dust now. The last couple weeks have given him a glimpse of the price you have to pay to make a difference, and maybe some people are willing to die for the cause, but he’s never had that sort of courage.

Still, he’s here. He’s got his black hoodie on and he’s walking into McPherson Square. He’s going to take a stand, support his friends, do what he can to protect people more vulnerable than him from this threat. Maybe that’s all anyone can really do.

On the street and in the square, sitting by the window in one coffee shop, on the steps of a church, everywhere Bucky looks, there are little groups of people, mostly dressed in black, heads covered with scarves or baseball caps, wearing sunglasses, bandannas around their necks, bike helmets swinging from a few people’s hands. They’re just standing, chatting, hands in pockets or checking their phones, deliberately casual. Hopefully, to any cops or uninvolved onlookers, they blend into the background.

“There,” Sam nods to a pair of people, just across the square. Bucky sees a flash of scarlet hair as Nat reaches up to adjust her cap, and he walks faster, wanting the feeling of safety he knows he’ll get just from being beside her.

Their heads turn as Bucky and Sam approach, Steve giving them a quick nod then looking back down at the burner phone clutched in his hand. Nat’s eyes skip up and down, taking in their outfits, plain black from head to toe, gestures at her own black jeans and shirt, deadpan. “Well, this is just embarrassing, guys. Who’s gonna go home and change?”

Bucky fishes in his pocket with his good hand, pulling out the old black kerchief, wondering how he’s gonna tie it around his head. Sam turns to him, and his eyes above his black bandana are so full of warm affection that for a second, Bucky can’t remember how to breathe.

“Come here,” Sam says, “let me fix that.” He takes the scarf and wraps it gently, firmly, so it covers Bucky’s nose and mouth. Bucky ducks his head a little so Sam can tie a knot in the scarf, they’re standing close enough that he can rest his head on Sam’s shoulder, turn his face to Sam’s neck, breathe in deep. Sam’s hands move from fixing the mask to cupping his jaw and gently moving his head up. Then he’s leaning in and lifting the mask up just enough to get his mouth on Bucky’s, and his lips are soft and warm, and Bucky’s hand goes straight to Sam’s hip to haul him in closer. Sam’s hands are at his neck and his waist, and Sam’s mouth is opening against his own, and they’re supposed to be on their way to shut down some Nazis and it would be really inconvenient to get a boner right now, wouldn’t it?

Bucky takes a step back. He’s grinning so hard his face hurts.

“So,” Sam says, “assuming neither of us end up in jail or hospital today, I was thinking I could take you out on an actual date.”

“Yes, please, definitely,” Bucky says.

“Good,” says Sam, and kisses him again, just a quick brush of lips before he’s pulling back and fixing Bucky’s scarf back in place, re-situating it over his mouth and tightening it slightly.

“Gabe?” Steve’s got the phone up to his ear, every muscle tensed, ready to move. “Fuck, what, they crossed I Street already? Ok we gotta _go_ , we gotta block them before H Street, go _now_ ,” and Nat’s frantically texting on another burner, and Bucky sees a group of guys on the other side of the park take off running towards Vermont Ave, and then Steve and Nat and Sam are running too. For a second Bucky’s terrified, what if he can’t keep up, what if he falls and hurts himself, what if he fucks it up for everyone by being too slow. But his feet start moving of their own accord and they're together, running down the road, and Bucky feels powerful and strong and good. He’s breathing steadily and keeping his balance, and mentally thanking Nat and Sam and Helen and Misty and Steve for pushing him to this point, where he can run and feel like he could run for hours, and not be scared of tripping or falling. They run across the park, down the avenue, out onto H Street, dodging pedestrians, seeing more and more figures in head to toe black come running out of side streets and coffee shops, seeing open shock on the faces of two cops outside the church, feeling a burst of vicious satisfaction, fuck them, they got nothing from him and now they’re getting outsmarted and overrun.

They hit the junction of H and Sixteenth and for a moment it’s total confusion, people everywhere, tourists and suits and cops, but there aren’t enough cops to block the street, they’re separated out in twos and threes and the antifa running in from all directions are dodging right past them, coming together, it’s starting to look like a proper bloc, like maybe the biggest black bloc Bucky’s ever seen. They’re filling the road, stopping traffic, spreading right across Sixteenth Street and moving north, blocking the way to the White House. Banners and black flags and some people are lighting flares, red and purple smoke billowing up into the sky, and people are shouting, chanting, _alerta alerta! Antifascista!_

“Where are they, where the fuck are they,” Steve’s yelling, jumping up and down trying to see over people’s heads, and other voices come shouting back from the north side of the bloc, _this side, hold the line, they’re coming this way._ Steve’s eyes are shining with excitement above his mask, he grabs Bucky’s hand and starts pushing through the crowd, because it’s not enough for him to just be here, he’s got to be at the very front, going toe to toe with a whole gang of Nazis three times his size.

They end up in the second row, in front of them a wall of bodies in black, arms linked, flagpoles or homemade wooden shields clutched in gloved hands. And in front of _them_ , maybe thirty feet away, that’s where the rest of the cops are. Lined up, riot shields out, bundles of zip ties clipped to their belts and Bucky’s legs are shaking and he wants to be anywhere the fuck else than here. A helicopter swoops overhead and he feels, rather than hears – all he can hear is car horns and the chopper engine and indistinguishable shouting – Sam, right behind him, drawing in one of those long slow breaths that says, _I’m determined not to panic right now._ He lets go of Steve’s arm for a moment and reaches back, taking Sam’s hand, squeezing it in what’s hopefully a reassuring way. Sam squeezes back, rests his chin on Bucky’s shoulder, and for a moment they just breathe together.

The line of cops goes right across the road. It stops at each sidewalk, and two more lines stretch back. They’re making a box, like a moving enclosure, although for the moment they’ve stopped moving. And they’re enclosing –

“Oh my god, how many are there,” Natasha says.

It looks like hundreds. As the front lines of cops and antifa shift slightly, people moving their feet, Bucky can catch glimpses of the people behind the cops. White faces, mostly men, pink and angry under military hats, helmets, those stupid red baseball caps. They have flags and banners too, reaching up above their heads, above the police line: runes and Celtic crosses, confederate battle flags, even a few honest to God swastikas. After all the preparation and discussion that led up to this moment, all the work Steve’s friends have been doing to investigate and doxx and track these peoples’ movements, all the theorizing and research, the handing out leaflets, all the blogs and newspaper articles, there’s something almost bizarre about seeing them right there in the flesh. Those white nationalists and Klansmen and alt-right everyone’s been talking about? They’re right here in the streets of the capital city, with their banners and t-shirts calling for race war and genocide, having a nice Tuesday afternoon walk, helpfully escorted by the local police. Some of them are the local police.

They’re shouting, chanting, and Bucky thinks _we should be drowning that out_ just as he sees Steve open his mouth, take a deep breath to yell, “whose streets?” and the people all around them give it back, _OUR STREETS_ at the top of their voices. The chants come thick and fast after that, louder and louder as the bloc grows, people still running to join from almost every direction; _whose lives matter? Black lives matter! Two four six eight, stop the fascists, stop the hate! No Nazis in our town, DC will fucking shut you down!_

There’s a cop with a megaphone at one end of the police line. Whatever he’s shouting is buried beneath the voices of both crowds, but the other cops must hear him because the front line takes five steps forward, marching in lockstep, the Nazis right behind them, chanting and jeering.

“Hold the line, hold the line,” and the black bloc shifts as people move closer to one another, linking arms or holding hands, adjusting their grips on sticks and flagpoles and shields. Another five steps and they’re getting close, and another chant starts up, _who do you protect? Who do you serve?_

“ _Hey_ look out –” there’s a sound, a horrible sick thudding noise, and then screams, and a kid in the front of the bloc crumples to the floor, clutching their head. In a second Sam’s darted around from behind Bucky and is kneeling in the road beside them, someone’s yelling, “they’re throwing rocks! Get those fucking shields up!” Steve grabs the improvised riot shield the injured kid has dropped – just a round chunk of wood, with a handle clumsily nailed to its back – and swings it up over his head, just in time to block a bottle which shatters against the shield, scattering bits of broken glass onto the road, and the cops take another couple steps forward, and more stones and bottles are flying from the fascists behind them. Natasha, eyes furious above her mask, grabs a rock up off the ground and throws it right back, it flies over a cop’s head with inches to spare and smashes one of the Nazis in the face, and people are cheering and chanting and Bucky’s screaming along with them, caught up in the anger and forgetting to be scared, _Nazi scum off our streets!_

The injured kid is back on their feet, holding a bandage against a bleeding head wound but walking, friends helping them move further back into the crowd. Bucky finds himself jostled into the front line, between Steve and Sam. Steve’s got the wooden shield up and is facing forwards, but Sam’s half turned away, keeping one eye on the injured kid, so he doesn’t see when another object flies from behind the police line, heading right towards him.

It’s grey, metallic, not a rock or a bottle, and for a split second the only thought in Bucky’s head is _no, please. Not again_ – but he moves without having to think, all Sam and Nat’s coaching finally paying off, jerking his left shoulder up and tensing his muscles so his prosthetic comes up beside Sam’s head, just in time, and the object slams against the plastic. It’s a blow that could have broken a human arm, and the force of it _hurts_ , juddering the attachment against his stump and knocking him a step back. The thing drops into the street and it is, it’s a fucking tear gas canister, but there’s no gas coming from it, maybe it’s dead, empty – Bucky kicks it, as hard as he can, sending it spinning away to the side of the road.

“Bucky,” Sam says, eyes wide, and Bucky looks at him, tries to say something, can’t even manage a weak smile. Sam reaches out and Bucky wants nothing more than to let Sam hold him, reassure him he’s alive, he’s not back there, the burning feeling in his stump is just friction from the prosthetic, he’s ok. But the cops are still moving closer, only a few yards away now, some of them have their helmet visors up, and with a godawful sinking feeling in his stomach, Bucky recognizes –

“Hi, James,” Rumlow says, grinning at him and Bucky’s shaking, feels like he’s gonna be sick, wants to run. How _stupid_ , to think he could just cover his prosthetic with a sweater and half his face with a cotton scarf, and expect to blend into the crowd and not be recognized by the guy who just a couple days ago spent hours beating the crap out of him.

“Oh, come on, are you serious?” Sam’s voice cuts through the noise of the crowd, through the awful hum of fear in Bucky’s head, loud and clear and not sounding the slightest bit scared, and Bucky thinks _fuck I love you._ “Four thousand cops in DC, why do we gotta keep running into you?”

“Wilson,” Rumlow says. “You sure you wanna stand up for this kid? He sold you out, you know. He was in the station a couple nights ago, singing like a little bird.”

“Man, shut the hell up,” Sam says. Rumlow’s face twists, anger overtaking his mocking smile, he opens his mouth but before he can get another word out, Sam’s taken two quick steps forward, across the small stretch of road between the police line and the bloc, and he punches Rumlow in the face so hard he knocks him off his feet.

For a moment it’s like everyone’s frozen, like nobody on either side can quite believe that actually just happened. Then Rumlow’s staggering to his feet, blood pouring from his nose and murder in his eyes, and Natasha and Steve are grabbing Bucky and Sam by the arms and shoving them back through the crowd, towards the middle of the bloc, away from the cops, and people are laughing and yelling and clapping Sam on the back, _what the fuck! Did you just punch that cop? Brother, get back here before you get arrested. That was so cool!_

Something flies over their heads from the middle of the bloc, shatters on the road in front of the cops in a burst of flame, who brought fucking molotovs? The cops are trying to shuffle backwards but the crowd behind them won’t let that happen, people are yelling and screaming and suddenly the crowd of fascists seems to be moving, shrinking inwards, like the marchers are being forced closer together by the lines of cops at either side; making space on both sidewalks. _Space for what_ , Bucky only has to wonder for a second, before more lines of police are running along the sidewalks, lining up in the gap between the two crowds. They’re facing the black bloc, and there are more screams of fear as people in the front rows realize the new cops are armed, and they’re aiming their guns directly into the crowd.

Bucky’s shaking all over. He wants to run back to the front of the bloc, get in between those guns and Steve and Nat and all their comrades. Luckily, his feet feel like they’re welded to the floor, some part of his body and common sense knowing that to run towards the armed police would be the stupidest possible decision. Sam’s left hand is gripping Bucky’s right and he’s raising his other hand slowly into the air, all around them in the bloc people are raising their hands; and another chant begins, quiet and scared at first, slowly gaining volume: _hands up. Don’t shoot. Hands up. Don’t shoot._

And maybe it’s because they’re a little further back in the crowd now, but underneath the chanting, and the jeering from the other side, and the cop shouting orders into his megaphone, Bucky could swear he can hear something else. Footsteps, a lot of footsteps, is it more cops, are they about to be surrounded, is it all over? But the steps aren’t moving in unison like marching cops do and there’s something else, voices, chanting? Singing?

“Do you hear that?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. He’s standing very still, eyes fixed straight ahead on the armed police, gripping Bucky’s hand so hard it almost hurts.

“I’m gonna go see what it is.”

“Bucky –” Sam’s head turns, just a fraction, just enough for their eyes to meet. For a moment it seems like he’s going to say _no, don’t_ ; but he lets out a slow breath and says, “I’m coming with you.”

A lot of people in the bloc are standing still, frozen, nobody wants to be the person who makes a sudden movement in front of a whole line of armed cops. There’s some movement, though, people raising their hands or shielding their heads, holding and reassuring each other, lifting up their phones to film the cops. As Bucky and Sam get near the back of the crowd the sounds of walking and chanting get louder, clearer; and other people are turning around, risking turning their backs on the cops and Nazis to see what’s going on; and then the bloc parts just a little and he sees it.

Marching towards them, up across H Street, onto Sixteenth, arms linked, singing. People, stretching back further than Bucky can see, it looks like they’re coming from – the other side of the White House?

“It’s the other demo,” somebody’s yelling, and he hears incredulity and laughter and relief in people’s voices as the message moves back through the crowd. It’s not all over. They’re not alone.

“Holy shit,” Sam says, and he’s still holding Bucky’s hand so tight, and as the huge crowd draws nearer Bucky can see they’re holding union banners and rainbow flags and homemade cardboard signs, _Love Trumps Hate, Solidarity Forever, Diversity Makes Us Stronger, No Fascists in Our City._  There are people in suits and tie-dye t-shirts; elderly couples, teenagers on bicycles, kids riding on their parents’ shoulders. “Look,” Sam says, and there in the very front of the crowd are Misty and Nick, Helen and Maria. They’re still walking, they’re coming right up to where Bucky and Sam are standing at the back of the bloc, they’re greeting people and smiling. They’re walking up to and around and right into the bloc, the two crowds merging together, becoming one huge mass of people, standing together.

 

~~~

 

“A rally by far-right groups in Washington DC ended abruptly this afternoon after clashes between police and ‘black bloc’ anarchists on Sixteenth Avenue,” the newsreader says.

They’re back at the warehouse, everyone gathered in the main space, a projector screen rigged up above the stage playing the news off a laptop. The footage must be from a helicopter. From above, the bloc looks even bigger, and there are cheers around the room as the camera catches the moment the molotov cocktail hits the ground in front of the police line.

“The far-right demonstrators were outnumbered by two counter-protests and police had to escort them out of the city in order to keep the streets safe,” and the camera’s tracking the Nazis, surrounded by police, as they move back north up Sixteenth Street, back the way they came, followed by the counter-demo.

“Too fuckin’ right they were outnumbered,” someone calls from the back of the warehouse. “Fifty to one!”

“Shhh, I wanna hear what they’re saying.”

“The Metropolitan Police Department is in disarray this evening, after documents were leaked online, alleging that over one hundred active duty police officers are affiliated with white nationalist and ‘alt-right’ organizations –” and the newsreader’s drowned out again as the room explodes with noise, people screaming, cheering, swearing, jumping up to hug one another.

“The MPD released a brief statement, saying an internal investigation would be launched and that officers would fully comply with any external investigations, leading some to speculate FBI involvement,” and the picture changes again, footage of Pierce, walking quickly towards his car, flanked by bodyguards.

“A separate statement was given by the office of Mayoral candidate and Chief of Police, Alexander Pierce. Mr Pierce was named in the leaks as an alleged member of, and major donor to, several far-right groups. An aide described the accusations as a ‘baseless smear campaign’, but also announced that Mr Pierce was withdrawing from the Mayoral election race immediately –” and once again, the end of the newsreader’s sentence is lost, easily drowned out as the noise levels in the hall reach deafening levels.

They’re the top news story on every channel. Some shows are barely even covering anything else. It’s hitting the talk shows, across the political spectrum, and it’s pretty entertaining, watching frazzled presenters and comedians and right-wing TV personalities try to get to grips with the notes that maybe just arrived on their desks an hour previously. It’s a hoax, it’s a left-wing conspiracy, it’s the greatest thing that’s happened for civil rights in this country for years, it’s a false flag, it’s a disgruntled ex-cop trying to stir up trouble, it’s the work of rival far-right organizations, it’s all Obama’s fault.

People are laughing, cracking jokes, yelling back at the screen. Bucky’s pretty sure some kids in one corner are trying to start a drinking game: _ok, so, take a shot each time Hannity says “antifa terrorists”_ … The baby hackers are passed out from exhaustion at the back of the room, Rhodey’s head on Pepper’s shoulder, Tony’s head in Rhodey’s lap. Steve and Nat are cuddled up close together on a couch, Nat digging her fingers into Steve’s shoulders in a way that’s probably good for his backaches but makes Bucky wince in sympathy.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice is deep and soft in his ear, and Bucky can’t stop the big dumb smile that spreads right across his face as Sam takes a seat on the floor beside him, putting his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, as casually as if he’s been doing it for years.

“I can’t,” Bucky starts laughing, “I can’t believe you punched Rumlow.”

“He had it coming,” Sam says, a deeply satisfied look on his face.

“More sensible than Steve, huh,” Bucky says, and Sam ducks his head, grinning. “You’re not hurt, are you?” Bucky asks, turning to get a proper look at Sam’s face. He takes hold of Sam’s right hand, turns it over gently to check for bruises on his knuckles.

He keeps remembering the way Sam’s whole body had tensed up when the helicopter swooped overhead, his face when the armed cops appeared, the way one hand shook very slightly as he held it in the air and the other gripped Bucky’s hand so hard it hurt. Sam’s so good at taking care of people – patching up their wounds, listening to their nightmares, teaching them, encouraging them to be better. Who looks after Sam?

“Are you ok?”

“I been through worse,” Sam says, “it wasn’t exactly Baghdad.”

“Not what I asked,” Bucky says.

“I’m ok,” Sam says, and his arm tightens around Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him in close. He ducks his head and leans in, pressing a kiss against Bucky’s head, right behind his ear. “You good?”

Bucky’s exhausted. He’s sweaty and worn out and in quite a lot of pain. He’s wondering where the hell they go from here, what will be the fallout from all this. How much have they damaged their enemy, how quickly will they regroup, what repercussions will there be? What’s going to happen with his court case, will the cops come after him? Has he taken a step into a new life that he may not be able to walk back out of?

It’s scary as hell, thinking about how angry the cops and the fascists must be. Knowing Bucky and Sam and all their friends have put themselves on the line even more, put themselves at risk. Yet at the same time he feels so proud, so happy to know these people and be part of this movement, at this moment in time. They stood up, they pushed back, they stopped a mass fascist march from taking the streets. Looking around the room, he’s amazed at what this group of people have achieved. Can’t wait to see what they’ll do next. Wondering what he might be able to achieve, now that he’s part of something like this. Maybe he’s being naive – or maybe a change is gonna come. Maybe everything’s gonna be ok.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, turning to smile at Sam. “Yeah, I’m good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this fic has been an extended labour of love. It's a difficult balance trying to write an entertaining story about AU queer superheroes which also deals with some very real, complicated and painful aspects of the world and political situation in which we find ourselves. 
> 
> I'm so grateful to everyone who read drafts and snippets, discussed it with me, and offered advice and encouragement. Also thank you to everyone who's been reading and commenting and retweeting it.
> 
> If you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to leave a comment, or share it on social media! I'm on twitter [@gyroscope_fic](https://twitter.com/gyroscope_fic). 
> 
> There's a thread [here of some of the books, articles, events, organisations, and real life antifascist superheroes who inspired this story](https://twitter.com/gyroscope_fic/status/1135190692001718278).


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